NUMB

This is a creative non-fiction piece I am turning in for class and I promised some creative writing to be posted soon, so I thought I'd start with this one...

She felt sick. It was third period and she asked to be excused to use the bathroom. 11:00 am... In the bathroom, she throws up, yet it did not make her feel better. Thank goodness it was a half day of school. Once she walked to the elementary school to pick her sister up, she could finally go home and rest…something didn't feel right though. What was this feeling?

Home at last. Her mom wasn't home yet, but no surprise there. Her mother usually stopped for a drink, or five, at the bar on her way home from her third shift job. A knock on the door. Her eight year-old sister opens it. There stand two policemen. The sick feeling returns. She goes to the door and tells her sister to go and watch television.

“Is there an adult home?”

“Nope, just me and my sister.”

“Is there an adult you can call?”

“My grandparents.”

She goes to the phone and dials the number. The sick feeling is still there, but now she knows why. She hands one of the policemen the phone and goes into the living room where her sister is watching cartoons. No tears, but they will come soon enough.

Her grandmother comes to pick her and her sister up to take them to her home. Her sister goes, but she does not. Instead, she goes to a friend’s house where she can numb herself. Still, no tears. She has no idea what to think. It seems so surreal. Finally, numb enough to do so, she falls asleep.

She wakes up minutes later. Her best friend had crawled in bed beside her, bawling. Still she has no tears. Everyone tells her it will hit her eventually, but it already has. It hit her in third period. Someday acceptance will come. Until then, she will stay numb.