The Decision
Recently, Years 7 & 8 wrote for the National Short Story Young Writer competition. The winners will be announced in April. The remit was to write a short story entitled ‘The Decision’.
It all seems like one big nightmare, it’s so unfair. She has done nothing wrong! Well, not now I think about it…
The very first moment when I identified that familiar face, pale and helpless, my heart sank into my shoes. The sound of the squeaky bed wheels, scraping across the floor, sent chills running up my spine. The medics pounced on her like animals to their prey, and all I could do was watch. I felt paralysed.
Minutes felt like hours but the time finally came. The scratchy soap bar scrubbed away layers of my skin as I gathered my thoughts on what lay ahead of me. I felt the nerves bubbling up inside me, my head was thudding as I stepped into the next 5 hours of my life.
Being in a theatre room with the power over life or death sitting on my shoulders was intimidating but something inside kept me calm; then, it was as if time stopped…
Those days when nothing mattered; no one cared what you looked like, you being goofy, or most importantly, who you were friends with!
We met at nursery; a place of laughing heaven. I can still vividly feel the heartache I felt when Sophie had her first day off school because she was ill. I felt like we could never be separated, and I cried all day long; that was the day I realised she was going to be my best friend forever more! The permanent smile that couldn’t be wiped off our faces when our parents dropped us off each morning, the way our chubby, little legs would flick up and down as we “sprinted” into a huge embrace.
Then came school, our elevator to life’s skyscraper. The dreaded six hours of torture was like a mountain climb, something you’ve got to stick with until you reach the very top. Days with her were filled with pain and breathless excitement and the sound of endless chuckling at the back of class; no matter the situation we were in together. Sophie had quite a tricky time at home, school was her kind of safe zone. When she was nine she lost her mum in a car crash and ever since that day her dad was overwhelmingly depressed. Dealing with that caused him to drink… too much! After he missed over 5 weeks’ worth of shifts and was then caught in the bathroom downing a bottle of vodka, he was immediately fired from the office.
After that catastrophe, Sophie then had to start working. When we were only thirteen, she got her first job at the local café. Most days she would come to mine because of the unbearable sense of grief her dad brought to the room. She could no longer cope.
We ended up like sisters, inseparable. Until one day… everything changed. We would tell each other everything, and the juicy gossip we stuffed each other’s minds with was something we’d never forget. After telling each other that we both liked Jack (only the hottest guy that walked through our school doors) we vowed that neither of us would make a move on him, it was the only fair way! That lasted about 5 years, until she could bear it no more.
When Sophie came home from work one day, very quiet and not responding to my greetings, I knew something had happened. She was never like that.
That night I got the news from hell! Not only had she betrayed our friendship but my trust as well. I never wanted to see her face again.
She spent the next week at Jack’s, not a peep. She should’ve told me how much she liked him, we could have talked it through, but… no. I can still feel the fury inside me, burning like an inferno, I had no one to go to, no one to help me, I was trapped.
She decided to move in with Jack, without her dad’s approval or my parents’; she ran away. Ever since then, a text containing the words “I miss you x” has been the only part of her left; apart from the tattoo, permanently with me forever, though I wanted to keep it, inside. I knew there was a reason we got them and I couldn’t just throw away that magical memory!
These thoughts were building up inside me until the dreaded sound of beeping coming from the heart-rate monitor dragged me back into reality.
I had to act fast, I couldn’t lose her - not after everything we’d been together. I glanced down at her wrist, unable to contain my anger at the sight of scratched scars all over my name. I stormed out of the theatre. That was my final decision. If she was going to stay alive, she would have to fight for it.
The skill of the people in that claustrophobic space was enough to keep her steady. I felt so bad. Just because she tried to get rid of me, didn’t mean I had to, I had to be the bigger person. I couldn’t leave her side all night, staring at her rosy cheeks, my stomach filled with criminality. I felt like I’d let her down, but we were going to get through it together!
I gripped her hand tight as I fell into a disturbing nightmare. I relived all of my childhood, unable to escape, until I woke up lying on the staffroom sofa.
I walked in the next morning, rushing to speak to the only person that mattered to me.
As soon as I stepped onto the ward, I felt eyes, pouring with accusation, crawling all over my back. My immediate instinct was that something had happened to Sophie…
That pale face that only hours ago was wheeled into a crowded pit of hell. Those 23 years of perfection, depression, laughter, smiles and friendship, all washed down the drain, never to be found again…
The final decision. I was speechless…..
