SO I wrote this for an english assignment in the 8th grade, and was going through some old files and found it. There are some parts that i don't really like about it, but i don't really have the motivation to fix it up today. Lemme know what you think.

Brea

Final Tears

If you had been walking down the main hallway of St. Michael’s Children’s Hospital at 2:00 am the morning of Saturday, September fifth, you might have been surprised at what you would have heard as you walked by room 32. For coming from the room was the quiet yet audible sound of hidden sobs.

If you had looked into room 32 of St. Michael’s Children’s Hospital at 2:00 am on Saturday, September fifth, what you would see would have made your heart cry out. A small girl, looking to be about the age of ten or eleven would have been curled in her bed, holding a small gray teddy bear ripping at seems that had already been repaired too many times. Large tears would leak through her closed eyelids to run down her face and dissolve into her pillow. Her fist, held near her head, would show a bruise as if she had recently banged it against something hard.

Upon looking further, you would have seen piles of birthday cards and presents lay on the floor next to the bed as if shoved off the night stand in a moment of anger. You would have thought ‘that must be how she got that bruise.’ As you glanced back at her, you may have been surprised to see her looking at you. Big brown eyes staring at you defiantly, as if she hadn’t just let out a sniffle or that there were no tearstains on her thin cheeks.

If you had responded to her “hello, would you like to come in?” with a “yes”, you would have soon found yourself sitting at the foot of her bed, sharing cookies you’d soon find out a friend had snuck in the day before.

You might have been surprised to find that her name was Mary and, where you thought she was a young child; it was the morning of her sixteenth birthday. You might have been surprised to learn that she was dieing, that she had leukemia and was down to her last few days. It might have surprised you to learn that you are only the third person to see her cry in her four-year ordeal. If you had asked why, her response would have shocked you.

She would have told you that she spent her life strong. Taking care of her siblings and helping her father after her mother left them. She would have mentioned that she was a good student, a’s and b’s usually, but that she that she also fought a lot and had a bit of a reputation at a few of her old schools.

She would have told you that she never cried if she could help it. Even when life seemed to want to shoot her down and she was stressed beyond belief, not a tear slipped through her mask.

She would have started to talk about how she got sick. She’d have told you how she’d been playing soccer with her friends, how Jonathan Hunt had walked up with his gang of “stupid” friends, how he’d stolen the ball as it went out of the field near him. Then she’d have talked about how she’d gone to get it and ended up picking a fight with the older boy. Then she’d have told you how, when Jonathan twisted her arm, it broke in four places. When she saw the doctor, the leukemia was too far along to be stopped.

Next she would have started to tell you about the first time she cried about having cancer. It had been the day she got her test results and was telling her boyfriend, Tyler, the news that she would die. She’d have told you how she often cried after that, in the middle of the night when she couldn’t sleep. And also that, late one night, a nurse had once heard her near-silent sobs.

You’d have been shocked as she snuggled into her bed, asking you sleepily to stay until she’d fallen asleep. You’d have been worried as her breathing became shallower as she fell asleep. Glancing at the clock, you’d have seen that it was now 5:00 am; Mary was exactly sixteen years old. Looking back, you’d have seen something that should not have happened to one so young and full of life.

As the nurses started running down the hall in response to that flat lining heart monitor, you’d slip out the bedroom door, wiping a tear.

But you weren’t there that night, and no one saw as Mary Andrews cried for the last time.