Dr. Robinson approached the glass doors of the room and entered. “Hi.”

“Hey,” my father replied. “how did she do?”

“That’s what I came in to talk about… the operation went okay. Until half way through. Something happened with her head. Her brain began to convulse. We couldn’t control it and, she passed away right in the middle of the operation.” My jaw dropped and my head pulsed. There was no way my mother had just died. Adrenalin filled my veins as I opened my mouth to speak. But, I lost it. I lost my ability to judge right and wrong. Good and bad. Sad and happy. My feelings became dull and rounded. Sort of like the tip of a shovel. Just hard enough to break ground, but not hard enough to withstand anything else.

My eyes began to burn. Leaving a painful sensation behind. My knees became weak and my bones felt like Jell-O. My father just tuned around, and sat. He sat and stared at the wall, like there was something there, like a painting. A painting of our perfect life, and everything in it. With flawless strokes and vibrant colors, it exuded light and had a golden aura around it. But getting bigger and bigger, every second he stared, a large black splotch began to appear.

It started exploring the painting, infecting everything in its way, and as the picture began to fill, more and more, with this dark ugly color, the painting began to appear again, except this time, in the middle, instead of a black splotch there was just a large, round, realistic, hole.

I pushed open the waiting room doors and ran to the end of the hallway, as if searching. Searching for an exit, not just to this hospital but to my life. The doors flew passed me as the room numbers began to decrease. The Emergency Exit quickly approached me and I needed to make a decision. I needed to decide if wanted to leave with my dignity, out a pure white door with my heart still unbroken, or if I wanted to leave with rebellion, with all of the bells and whistles of my life ringing.





I pushed the doors open and it sounded like hundreds of instruments erupted from the building. I couldn’t tell though. I used all my strength to get out the door. The outside world was cold and icy but I ran to the street. Once I was on the sidewalk, I applied all that I had left to run as fast as I could down the side of the road.

I finally collapsed on the curb, my warm hands hitting the freezing stone all at once. My tears flowed as I sat there and just wept. I pulled my knees to my chest and laid my head down. Just as I was closing my eyes, I could see Dill and Dad running down the sidewalk to me. Like two knights in shining armor that have come to rescue the princess. As if in this moment, in this certain situation, I was the one who needed saving.