Ali

A Short Story

Here I am sitting on a nicely cushioned chair at the local cemetery. I am not the only person here; there are many family members surrounding a medium-sized baby blue casket of a girl who will be buried six feet under. A girl whose name was Ali. Ali, my best friend.

Ali was the greatest friend any girl could ask for. She loved to laugh, she was an excellent artist, she loved to adventure, and she was quite the comedian. Ali and I gave each other rude nicknames to call each other; like I would call her “Moronic Ali” and she would call me “Dippy Laurie”. We don’t why we did it, but we were best friends who loved to cause trouble and have fun.

Ali was loved and envied by many people. She was popular, I wasn’t. She was pretty, and I wasn’t. She was nominated as “Miss Michael Jordan” on the basketball team, while I was labeled as “Foolish” and “Untalented” because I wasn’t like Ali. But I, Laurie, was Ali’s best friend.

Ali was everything everyday until her father unexpectedly died from cancer. She kept it a secret, until the news about her father was spread in town by the local newspaper in the obituaries section. But she kept quiet whenever someone asked her what kind of cancer her father had died from. “It was only cancer,” She would say.

Ali’s mother was also dying around the springtime. So she sent Ali to a foster home 3 weeks before she died. This is the beginning of Ali’s changes.

---

One day, at lunch break, I was on a search for Ali big time. I called her phone, but she didn’t answer. Was she mad at me?

I gave up a couple minutes later and sat down at a table. Right when I was about to eat lunch, Cassandra, a popular cheerleader and one of Ali’s close friends sat down next to me and just started chatting. I found that was completely strange because Cassandra was one of the people who always thought that I was a loser, too.

“Listen Laurie, I know you’re Ali’s best friend and all, but seriously, we need to talk,” Cassandra began. “And I thought that it would be important to let you know, too.”

What? are you jealous already? I thought in my head.

Right when Cassandra opened her mouth to finish her conversation, the bell for class had rang. I was really desperate to know what the hell was going on with mine and Ali’s friendship. So I held Cassandra back.

“Finish what you were going to say!” I commanded.

She looked at me in shock. Her facial expression was like, “How dare an ugly loser like you pull a pretty girl like me like that!”

I had a grip on her wrist pretty hard, but I let her shove me off.

“Just go to the smoker’s pit tomorrow and you’ll see what I mean,” She advised strictly to me. Then she pushed me and sped to class.

---

All last night I was stressing out about Ali again. I kept calling her and calling her and left a couple of messages, but she wouldn’t answer or reply back. Did I make her mad somehow? Is she starting to think I’m a loser? Is she dying too? Does she now have a boyfriend? Well today was the day to find out.

At lunch break, I head towards the smoker’s pit and oh my god I’ve should have known! Of course she was at smoker’s pit because she was with Myk, the “owner” of the smoker’s pit puffing a cigarette with him. I sprinted to the pit and pulled Ali away and shrieked as loud as I could, squeezed her real hard on her shoulders, and all on top of that with the blood running to my head from anger.

“What the hell is wrong with you? What are you trying to do?”

“N-n-nothing! You don’t understand, Laurie!” Ali stuttered.

“What is that I don’t understand? What is your problem? You haven’t spoken to me for weeks!”

“I am stressed, and I am lonely. I don’t want any friends anymore except for Myk. He’s cool.”

Ali was struggling to get my hands off of her, but I didn’t let her.

“Oh, so this means you don’t want to be friends anymore!” I shook her. I was angry.

Ali used all of her strength and pushed me to the ground and didn’t help me up. She just stood there, breathing heavily, and glaring down upon me.

“What has happened to you?” I said weakly. “You know better.”

“Whatever. I don’t want anyone anymore.” Ali replied.

“You’re not even beautiful anymore,” I spat back.

She flicked a cigarette ash on my face. “No, you bitch,” she put the cigarette back in her mouth, inhaled, and then exhaled her smoker breath onto my face and finally said, “You’re the one who’s never even been beautiful.”

She turned around and walked away, leaving me there on the gravel ground with smoke and dust all over me.

And that’s when I realized that her parents had died of smoking.

---

Since our 11th year of school began, Ali and I decided to split up and never to talk to each other ever again. This girl had problems ever since her parents had died. She quit basketball, she was lazy, she did gain some weight, and she defiantly wasn’t funny anymore. She was just one of those girls that people would say “Oh, her,” whenever somebody mentioned her name. Cassandra also started to some spread rumors about Ali.

We continue to pass each other in the hallways. I realized that I was the only one who kept looking at her every time she walked by.

---

The next following five months, Ali had developed leukoplakia and cancer inside of her lungs. I felt so bad for her that I visited her in the hospital every week to see how she was doing after all she’s done to me.

We grew closer each week, but not to a point where we would become best friends again. After each visit, I would visit her nurse and ask her on how Ali’s body is doing. For the past two months that I visited Ali, her nurse said Ali’s results were doing well, but she will be in the hospital for a certain amount of time. Well today’s results were different. And they were the kind of results that would have your heart stop beating.

“Ohhhh boy…” Nurse Kendra sighed. She kept scrolling down the screen on the computer and mumbled endlessly.

“What? What’s going on?” I asked. But she ignored me and picked up the phone instead.

“Doctor Russell? Yes this is Kendra. Yes, I need you to come upstairs and into my office right away sir.” She hung up the phone and looked at me.

“Your friend’s not doing so well today,” the nurse told me. “But hopefully she’ll be okay. Doctor Russell knows what to do.”

“But what the hell is going on?” I asked impatiently. She still ignored me.

Doctor Russell popped into the door. He scared me at first because the room was so quiet. He was a smart looking guy and very tall and bald.

“What’s going on, Kendra?” said Doctor Russell. He seemed pretty happy today.

Dr. R kneeled down next to Kendra as she showed him the results.

“Uh-oh…” he replied.

“What? What? C’mon, tell me!” I begged.

Dr. R speed walked into Ali’s room with Nurse Kendra following behind.

And everyone still ignored me.

---

I haven’t been to the hospital for five weeks now. Track had started, and I was piled up with homework. I called the hospital everyday, and most of the time they wouldn’t answer, put on hold for too long, or they couldn’t take my call. But on one Saturday afternoon I called and they finally let me talk to Ali for approximately three minutes.

“What’s going on with you? Are you okay?” I asked.

“Oh, no, I’m fine. Dr. R got me some meds to take which are supposed to help, but they don’t feel like really are. But I guess they’ll kick in soon.” She said joyfully.

“You have 2 minutes remaining,” Interrupted the recording machine.

“When can I call you again?” I asked.

“Umm…call me next Thursday. The doctors are going to be working with me a lot so…” she couldn’t finish her sentence.

“You have 1 minute remaining,” Again, interrupted the lady on the recording machine.

“Laurie,” Ali said quickly.

“Yes?”

“Do not do drugs.”

And then she hung up.

---

It was Thursday night, and I was planning to call Ali in two minutes after I would finish my homework until the phone rang, which my mother answered.

“Hello?” my mother said. I stayed still and tried to listen on what was going on.

“Are you serious?” my mother asked in a shaky shock.

I knew this wasn’t good news. I knew that it was about Ali.

My mother lets out a huge sigh. “Well, okay then. I am very sorry.”

Then she hung up.

I heard nothing but quietness for a few seconds. Then I heard my mother sniffling.

That’s when I realized the Ali had died.

---

Ali died Thursday, at 6:45 P.M. The phone call last night was made at 9 by Ali’s mother. My mother did come into my room to tell me what has happened. I told her I already knew.

Ali died from so much carbon monoxide inside of her lungs. And unfortunately, the doctors couldn’t even do anything about it. Not even long, tall, and smart and bald Doctor Russell.

So now, this how I ended up here, at this local cemetery at Ali’s funeral. I am sitting under a tree, right next to my mom and listening to all the little sniffles she makes. On the tree above us, two vanilla owls watch below.

Everybody came; from geeks to preps; the people who wanted to be her friend, her worst enemies, her close friends, her crushes, Myk and her ex boyfriends, and even Cassandra joined too, and not to mention relatives either.

I thought about her life while I am at this funeral. I am even writing this story inside of my head. The last time I saw Ali’s face: two Saturdays ago. The last time I heard Ali’s voice: last Saturday. I was the last person to hear Ali’s voice when she was still living.

Her casket is now placed right by her mother and father’s grave. There is now a big memorial carved with their last name on it: McMoore. Now when somebody else, someday, dies in the McMoore family, they will be buried there, in the deceased families’ area.

I watch the caretakers lower Ali down into the ground. Everyone is leaving, except for me; I want to watch this. My mother puts my hand on my shoulder as the caretakers pick up their shovels and start to bury Ali six feet under the Earth. I do not cry, but I do stand up and pray for her peacefully. My last look around here is the two vanilla owls as they fly off to another tree in the garden. I can feel Ali’s touch on my face as the wind blows through my hair as I head back to the car. I now know that she is happy.

The End