Gone

Gone

By: Aleksa Secrest

Dedicated to anyone who has lost a pet.

Maple Leaf Writing Project

Brattleboro, Vermont

2017

I inhale deeply, the air smells heavily of clean band-aids. I open my eyes and find myself on a rolling bed, moving along through smooth halls, surrounded by people in light blue outfits. One lady glances down at me sympathetically. My leg throbs with excruciating pain, and I remember what happened. Images thunder across my mind, waking up to the fire alarm blaring, and my desk that was full of all the artwork i’ve ever made on fire. I remember screaming Bagel, my beagle’s name over and over, then tripping over a ceiling beam, and having something heavy fall on my leg, crushing it into an odd position. No wonder it hurts so much. Wait… Bagel. “Where’s Bagel!” I yell, jolting up.

Every inch of my body protests, and I gasp for air as nurses lay me back down. My mom’s face appears and her hands grasp mine. “Honey…” she says looking away, “Bagel didn’t make it out of the house.”

2 years later

“One, two, three, GO!” Poppy charges at the pile of leaves, jumps up high, and then plops down in them like a furry Michael Phelps. I follow her, running on my silver prosthetic leg. I got it 2 years ago after our house caught on fire. I pick up the Corgi puppy and hold her in front of me. “You really do look like a marshmallow,” I acknowledge, remembering what my friends say about her.

I walk into the kitchen and Poppy trots over to her food bowl. My mom is sitting on one of the stools, she motions for me to sit on the other. “Audrey, honey, we need to talk.”

“What about?”

“School.”

“Um. What.?” My heart skips a beat.

“Audrey, I know that you don’t want to go to school with your prosthetic leg, but with my new job, I can’t homeschool you anymore and it doesn't make sense for us to pay a lot for a homeschooling teacher, when public school is free.” My mouth drops open and tears stream down my face. “Don't worry though, Logan and Danielle are in a few of your classes,” she adds quickly. “You would start next week.”

“Mom,” I whimper like an innocent puppy, “I really don't want to go to school.”

“Oh, I know,” she says, pursing her lips and giving my hand a light squeeze.

I hop down from the stool and stomp to my bedroom, then slam the door.

I stand in front of the full length mirror that hangs on the pale lavender walls.I look at my long chestnut colored hair, cascading like a waterfall down my shoulders, my giant, sky blue eyes. I remember in second grade, before the fire, on the first day of school, a boy (Logan) walked up to me and told me my eyes made me look like I was an alien. I hadn't minded though, because at the time, I loved aliens. I look at my clothes,a green, patterned shirt that hugs my slender body, faded jeans, and fuzzy pink socks. Then my eyes fall to my prosthetic leg, mine always do, everybody's always do, it's like a tiger trapped in a crowded zoo, everybody's always looking at it, but still intimidated by it. My stupid, STUPID prosthetic leg. It’s MY fault Bagel died! If my STUPID leg didn’t trip, I would STILL have my dog. AHHH!! I chuck all my pillows at the wall, then collapse into my beanbag, sobbing. My two cats, Ben and Jerry, walk out of their hiding spot in the closet. They lay down beside me, then begin a steady pattern of soothing low purrs.

“BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP.” I flop over and glare at the alarm clock, as if it was It’s fault this day came. I roll out of my warm bed and hop over to where my prosthetic leg is standing, I strap it on, then I walk over to the closet, throw on a fuzzy, grey sweater, and purple leggings, pulling the pant leg over my prosthetic.

I walk noisily down the stairs, then chomp down on a hot cinnamon roll.

“Good morning Audrey,” Dad says, grabbing a chocolate chip muffin and beginning to nibble the top.

“Ready to face high school?” he says, his voice filled with hope.

“I guess. Bye dad,” I say giving a small smile and standing up to leave.

“Bye sweetheart, it'll be great,” he says, and kisses the top of my head. We live a couple blocks away from the school, so I have to walk. I’m pretty used to walking by now since I've been doing it for 2 years.

When I step outside, I realize that fat, delicate snowflakes are steadily covering the ground in a blanket of white.

The crisp air claws at my face, but I love every part of it. I love how the snow dances around me, I love how the cold envelops my body and how the smell of Christmas trees leaps through the air. Before I know it, I realize that my numb foot has carried me to Red Stark high school.

I look at my schedule which I had gotten in the mail, and try to find the classroom for science. As I quickly walk down the hall, people stare at my prosthetic leg. I bite my lip and push past them, trying to ignore the whispers between groups of friends.

When I finally find the classroom, I sit down in the back, next to a nice enough looking girl, and she smiles sweetly at me. A few minutes later, a sturdy looking man walks into the classroom.

“Hi students,” he says, looking around the room. “I’m Mr.Howard, your science teacher, clearly. Anyway, today we’re going to be making chemical reactions.”

“Like, explosions and stuff?” asks a boy who had stuff pouring out of his desk and backpack, and was noisily chewing a chocolate bar.

“Yes Emmet, like explosions and stuff,” Mr.Howard says, chuckling. The class cheers, and Mr.Howard assigns us lab partners based on who we sit next to.

I find out the girl who smiled at me’s, name is Jade. I also find out that she’s a skilled dancer, and was invited to go to the Pointed Toes Training Program in New York. It’s a dance school that trains you for being a professional, and only 50 people get in it each year.

“So, tell me the story of that,” Jade says, pointing to my prosthetic leg.

“Uh… Um,” I feel a lump forming in my throat, and it feels harder to breathe. Tears well up in my eyes and I’m suddenly running, pushing open the door and running into the bathroom. I sit on top of the toilet and rest my head on the side of the stall as fat tears stream down my face.

A few minutes later, I hear a soft rap on the stall door.

“Audrey… can you please come out.” I slowly push open the door. Jade stands there, her hands clasped behind her back.

“Our house caught on fire,” I say, slumping against the wall. “We don’t know how, but it did. I.. gasp.. couldn’t save.. Gasp.. my dog.. Gasp.. BECAUSE OF THIS!” I shout, and bang on my prosthetic leg.

“Oh my god,” Jade says, her face sinking. “I’m so sorry.”

“It’s fine,” I say, wiping my nose on my sleeve.

“I wanna show you something,” she says.

“Sure.”

“Ok, but first, can we get out of the boy’s bathroom?”

Jade leads me down halls and through empty classrooms that I didn’t even know existed. We finally stop when we reach what looked like a supply closet.

Jade takes out a key from her pocket and unlocks the door.

“ Wow” I say, scanning the room. In it was pillows, beanbags, snacks, and books. The walls were painted light blue, but you could only see cracks of it because there were so many posters, pictures, and notes overlapping each other.

“What is this?”

“It's just a place where I go to escape, I eat lunch in here, and just, you know, hang out, oh, and sometimes I stay here after school because I have 5 siblings.” Jade plops down on a green beanbag.

“Does anybody else know about this?” I ask, joining her on the floor.

“Nobody except me, and now you. For some reason no one has come in this room for 2 years. Also, I stole the key and the principal is too lazy to get another one made,” she says, grinning.

Once school ends, I walk home and pick up on a note that was left on the kitchen floor. Hi Audrey! I'm out running errands, be back at 6:30. Love you- Mom.

I walk into my room and get out a fresh canvas, clean paintbrush, then sit down on a stool. I paint a blue streak, then a purple one. The bristles begin to attack the innocent canvas, colors fly everywhere, I don’t have a clue what I’m painting, but I don’t stop to think.

I step away, breathing hard, my heart pounding. I wouldn’t even call what I made a picture. There wasn’t a sliver of white left on the canvas, just colors exploding everywhere. Somehow though.. somehow.. it was beautiful.

The next day, I go to the secret room, as I’ll call it, and find Jade sitting there, reading a book called Jammed, with a picture of a sad looking jar of jam on the cover.

“Hi.”

“Hi, hey that’s my favorite book EVER!” I say, pointing at Jammed.

“Really? Same!” Jade smiles. She resumes reading and I sit down in one of the chairs.

“Can I ask you something?” I whisper, looking out the window.

“Yeah, sure.”

I take a deep breath, “how do I not get upset when I'm trying to tell someone what happened with my leg?” Jade looks at me.

“Just go to your happy place.”

“What?” I ask, getting out a bag of chips from the cabinet.

“You know, think about the thing that makes you the most happy, like I would think about dancing, and then I feel calm and comfortable.” The bell rings for first period and we get up to leave.

“Hey Jade.”

“Yeah?”

“Thanks,” I say, then walk out of the room.

During art class, once I finish my drawing, I hand it in to the art teacher, Ms. Kelly.

“Audrey this is amazing,” she says, holding the piece of paper up to the light. “It really expresses you somehow, even though this is the first time we met.”

“Oh, um, yeah, thanks,” I mumble.

I could tell she was itching to know what happened to my leg. Go to your happy place, practice, what’s my happy place though? Art, snow, Poppy. Why not just do all of them? I imagine myself sketching a picture of Poppy playing in the snow, her little ears flopping as she bounds through the snow.

“My house caught on fire and something heavy fell on my leg, so they had to amputate it and I got a prosthetic.” I shock myself, surprised that there were no tears, or shame involved.

“Oh, I’m really sorry honey,” she says, then I walk back to my table, with a smile.

When I wake up the next day, my parents are huddled, whispering in the kitchen.

“Morning,” I say with a yawn, “whatcha.. whatcha guys talking about?” Mom turns around and she has a look of sadness sprawled on her face.

“Last night Jade was driving home after getting some stuff from the grocery store. The roads were really icy, and.. And she crashed.” My heartbeat quickens, and I run into the garage where I find my Dad’s truck parked. I have my license but not my own car, so I’m occasionally allowed to use my parent’s.

I pull out of the driveway and start driving to the hospital, and when I get there, I run up to the front desk, panting.

“I’m looking for Jade Waters,” I say, practically yelling.

“Yes of course dear, I’m guessing you're her friend, Audrey, Jade’s parents were telling me about.”

“That’s me,” I say, lip quivering. The lady leads us into a smallish room, where Jade’s parents are sitting in chairs, tears streaming.

“Hi Audrey, we’ll give you some time with Jade,” her mom says, then they leave the room.

“Is she gonna live?” I ask the lady.

“She might, she might not, at this point we can’t do anything more, it’s all up to her.” Then she leaves too.

I kneel down next to Jade’s bed, and clutch her cold hand in my warm one.

“It’s all up to you. If you die, you can’t go to the dance school, and we can’t be friends, Jade, you're one of the best things that’s happened to me, I don’t want to lose you.” Tears slowly trickle down my cheeks, and I hold on to her hand tighter.

“I’ll stay with you through all of it,” I whisper to her expressionless face, as another round of tears waterfall down.

I keep my promise, and sit next to her all day and night, hoping for something good to happen. A couple days later, I bring in Poppy. She delicately moves around Jade so she can get to her face, then starts licking it. I start crying again, because I know Poppy thinks Jade is just sleeping, and everything is fine. That’s how Poppy wakes me up in the morning, she licks me until I laugh and jump out of bed, then almost fall over because I forget I haven’t put my prosthetic on yet.

Tears stain my face, and I lean over both of them, then Poppy steps back.

Somehow my instincts tell me to look at her heart monitor, I do, and find that it is steadily speeding up. I lean over her and wait for something to happen, nothing does, my heart sinks a little. Then suddenly her eyes flutter open.

“Jade?!!”