Burntcore Week 81: Life After the Laughter is Gone

Burntcore
Tuesday



Picture 1


Picture 2

Burntcore's Choice: Picture 1


Title:

Life After the Laughter is Gone

I fingered the pale blue paper that was pinned to my corkboard of my dormroom. Shelley scribbled that note to me one day in chem lab when I was having a rough day. She always did stuff like that. Little stuff to let you know she was thinking about you or something to cheer you up. She was great like that.

Was.

She can’t cheer me up anymore. No one can. My parents tried. My sister Ellie tried. It didn’t work. Only Shelley had that affect on me.

And she was … gone.

Her laugh was gone. Her smile was gone. Everything. Gone.

It was so stupid. Such a freak twist of fate. No drunk driver, no drug overdose, or any other typical kind of things that happen in college. Nope. Far from it.

Shelley was loud and vivacious. Everyone knew when she was in the room. She was one of those people who were alive without being obnoxious. She lit up the room with her presence and the world was better for having her in it.

Yet, an aneurism, a tiny little blockage in her brain took her away. A silent, insidious killer for someone who was anything but silent.

We were hanging out with some friends, listening to music and studying when she complained about a really bad headache. Within a few minutes she was having a seizure.

Several of us thought that maybe she had meningitis, but this was much, much worse.

By the time she was at the hospital, she had lost consciousness. Shelley never woke up before she finally passed away a week later. I never got to see her bright blue eyes again. I never got to hear her laugh again. I never got to hug her again.

As my mind whirled, I rocked back and forth, curled up on my bed. I went through all the things that I thought we’d experience together, that I was left alone to discover.

My life was now nothing but a series of events that Shelley would never do again. Our finals she’d never take. The Winter Formal she wouldn’t attend. Spring Break she wouldn’t get. Graduation. It went on and on.

This wasn’t how it was supposed to go. This wasn’t a part of the plan.

I was perched precariously on the edge of the void that Shell’s death created. I wasn’t sure if I could keep myself from falling in. Only she could pull me back ...

... but there was Ellie and my parents.

Could I do the same thing to them? I shuddered and curled up tighter, uncertain of what to do next.