As I sat in the hospital bed - so covered in bandages, gauze, and plaster that I was practically immobilized - I thought. As I thought, I waited. Waited for people to come, waited for people to leave. Waited to heal, waited to get out of this God-damned hospital bed with its metal rails, weird antiseptic smell, and ugly floral bedspread. All this waiting made me realize. . . . . . that I really wanted to stop waiting and do something.

Someone, probably my overprotective ultra-concerned mother, had brought a couple of chapter books, and they were sitting on the too-low bedside table to the left of me with the TV remote on top of them. But as almost half of the bones in my left side were fractured in some way, those options were out, at least without help.

I raised my head slightly, straining my bruised neck muscles to glance at my surroundings. I was met with nothing especially interesting: an equally ugly yet unoccupied bed fitted with the same revolting floral sheets, an empty squeaky wooden chair next to an identical chair only this one was occupied by my sleeping father, his head lolling to one side like a bobble head doll, a blank TV mounted to the ceiling, horrendous yellow-green walls the color of sick (which I found very ironic), and a plain grey door that had swung open, allowing me to see the outside world, taunting me with the only escape out of my hospital prison. The only way out was so close, yet so far away for my immovable limbs splintered and numbed as they were.

I released the tension in my worn-out neck muscles and let my head down to rest on the too thin pillows. “Unghhhhh,” I grunted, letting out a sigh that whistled through the new gap in my teeth. I contemplated waking up my dad so he could either hand me a book or turn on the TV, but decided against it. I had already read all of those books several times, and there wouldn’t be anything good on TV at this time of night. I guess I was back to thinking.

I wondered how I would tell this story when morning finally broke and visiting hours started. No one would believe it; they wouldn’t believe how I ended up here with nearly half of the bones in my left side broken. And when they heard my story, they would probably laugh, and wonder why that pen was so terribly important to me. They wouldn’t understand, and probably wouldn’t try to, and I would just laugh it off with them and hope that the whole thing would be forgotten in a few months when I was completely healed and through the physical therapy I was going to have to attend.

Though I shouldn’t forget that in all honesty, I was lucky to be alive.


Only two days ago, I was sitting at the kitchen table in my house, slowly spooning tasteless milk-soaked cornflakes into my mouth. As their soggy remains got stuck in my teeth, I was forced to wash them down with a swig of freshly squeezed orange juice. This may seem like a quiet and boring task, but nothing was like that in my house. Surrounding me was the usual morning chaos.

I have two younger brothers, and one older, so my house was a constant place of indoor Nerf wars, wrestling (though that was confined to the basement because of an incident involving an expensive vase of my great grandmother’s, thank God!), very loud and disruptive football/basketball games that generally involved a lot of overexcited company, an enormous amount of graphic video games (it seemed like that and sports events were the only things our TV was used for), and many other irritating and otherwise infuriating things that you really can’t get used to. My only reprieve was that at least my one older brother has moved out now, and I was well on my way to following.

So, you can imagine what it would be like trying to get ready for school/work in the morning here: absolutely no bathroom access, very little available edible food, being squished in the tiny little sedan we have instead of a real car next to your two monstrous just-had-another-growth-spurt brothers with your overcautious mother at the wheel with her tediously long pauses at stop signs and highest speed at just under the limit on any road. It’s enough to drive anyone crazy.

And, today was even worse than usual because Jamie, my youngest brother, has a friend – Jason- who was staying over this week because his parents were in Portugal for a second honeymoon (oh, to be a single child). This meant one more mouth to feed, one more person who needed to use the bathroom, and one more person who needed to fit in our miniscule too-small-to-be-an-actual-working-car sedan. Ahhhhhhh!

So, I decided to hitch a ride with my friend Samantha (Sam) today. How I would regret that decision. Because, if I hadn’t gotten a ride with Sam, I wouldn’t have been early to school and run into Max on my way inside and he wouldn’t have stolen my pen and I wouldn’t have had to do a way too long series of way too embarrassing things in order to get it back, and if I hadn’t had to preform those highly embarrassing tasks, I wouldn’t have ended up in this hospital room prison cell with no windows, no non-ugly bed sheets, and no pen.

If only I had known, I would’ve braved the morning with my brothers and Jason and I would’ve had a perfectly dull and uninteresting Tuesday at school. I would’ve gone home without any exciting or unexpected events occurring, without meeting Max, losing my pen, and ending up being mummified with bandages, gauze, and plaster in the emergency room at Danford Hospital in downtown San Francisco.

But I didn’t know, and I stepped into Sam’s roomy Subaru unaware of how different my life would be as a result, thinking only of my relief at not having to spend another car ride in the tiny sedan with my giant brothers and of how grateful I was to Sam that she could drop me off at school. I opened that door and sat down completely oblivious of what I had just done. I quickly shut the door and took away any last chance I had of escaping this car ride to my demise (or near demise).

I guess by now you must be wondering what’s so important about this pen. What makes it so special that I would go to such lengths to save it? Well, here’s why.
A couple months ago, my grandmother died. Though before that, she’d suffered from Alzheimer’s disease for a couple years, and her condition was rapidly getting worse as she approached her end. Slowly, she stopped recognizing me and started calling me by my mother’s name, thinking me to be her as a kid. That’s how far gone she was. The real kicker is, I remember her before she got sick, remember how she was. And we were really close; I was constantly going over to her house and seeing her when I was younger.
The last time I saw her before the funeral, she was somewhere else, her mind hidden in the deep recesses of her distorted brain, mumbling nonsense words under her breath and wandering about her room purposelessly. Though, the one time she did acknowledge my presence, it was to hand me an old, used ball point pen with less than half of its dull blue ink left. I turned it over in my hands (while avoiding the chewed-up parts) like it was something precious, and it was, at least to me.
Then she walked away, muttering something under her breath, and went to sit on her bed. My mom then said to, “Throw away that piece of junk, it’s time to leave.” I know she sounds harsh, but that’s just how she deals with this, with her mother rotting away in a second rate mental hospital while on death’s door.
So, despite her advice, I pocketed it. The very next day, my grandmother passed away in her sleep.
Ever since then, I had brought that pen wherever I went. I never used it; I just kept it near me at all times, as if I was keeping a piece of her with me.
Today, it was behind my ear and tucked into my hair, only visible if you knew it was there. As I stepped into Sam’s Subaru and shut the door forcefully behind me, the pen wobbled and fell onto my lap. I quickly plucked it up and pushed it through the hair behind my ear again, shoving it back into hiding where no one could see it and ask why in the world I would let such a grossly mangled pen exist without taking mercy on it and throw it away. Which is exactly what Sam did.
“Hey, what happened to that poor stick of blue plastic? It looks like it was put in a blender full of dog drool and whirled around on high for longer than it deserved.” Sadly, she was only exaggerating by a little bit.
“Oh,” I said, a telltale flush of embarrassment spreading on my neck and cheeks, “It’s nothing.”
“No seriously,” she insisted, only half-jokingly, “What happened to that thing? Did it used to be a pen?”
“Just drop it, okay?” I said, probably a little to angrily.
“Chill, I was only asking a question,” she said, backing off, an almost imperceptible frown on her face.
We sat in silence for a little while as she pulled out of my driveway and down my street, heading down the all too familiar path to school. A minute or two passed with us in slightly uncomfortable silence until I said, “Hey, did you hear that Joanne is going out with Simon now?”
“Oh my God, no way! How did that happen? Who asked who?” she replied in her usual bubbly way, the frown erased from her features, and everything was right with the world again.
We spent the rest of the car ride discussing the romance of Simon and Joanne in great detail and some other unimportant gossip that I cannot remember anymore.
We pulled up to the curb in front of school and Sam dropped me off before she parked because I had Mr. Simmons first period and if you weren’t at least two minutes early, he marked you late. She slowly pulled to a stop in front of the main entrance, and let me out with her signature overly cheerful, “Bye, see you later!” As she drove off towards the parking lot, and I walked towards the main doors, my hand drifted up to tuck my uncooperative hair behind my ear and accidentally brushed my precious pen which caused it to fall to the ground for a second time that morning.
“Crap,” I muttered as I bent down to pick it up. But, before I could, another hand swiped it from the ground right before my eyes.
It was Max, an ex-boyfriend of mine. As I rapidly straightened my spine in order to properly glare at him, he grinned widely and said, almost identically to Sam, “Ewwwww! What is this thing? Did it go through a lawnmower and then get digested by a small rodent or something?” He held my poor pen disgustedly away from him, gripping it with only two fingers for a moment until he dropped it on the ground for the third time that day. I lunged for it, but somehow, with his ninja reflexes, he managed to grab it before me again.
“Give it back,” I said flatly, holding out my hand and wearing an expression that showed I meant business. Most people would’ve cringed and handed back the pen, no question. Not Max. He just grinned and shook his head, immune to my looks. I guess you would have to be in order to date me for any length of time.
“Nu-uh,” he said, shaking his head and grinning even wider, if possible, “I see some fun in my future.”
I threw out my hand as fast as I could in attempt to snatch it away from him, but again, he eluded me with his ninja reflexes by closing his hand just before I had the chance to grab the pen.
“Oho,” he said, amused. I fumed, and it felt as though smoke was literally coming out my ears as I said, “Give. It. Back.”
“Touchy, touchy,” he said, almost laughing at me now, “And no. But . . . . I may reconsider. How bad do you want it?”
Oh how he must be enjoying this. Having this power over me. He took my silence as an answer.
“So you really want it back. Hmmmmmmmm. Fun, fun. How ‘bout this, I’ll strike you a deal. If you do whatever I say, as long as it’s not inappropriate, life-threatening, or breaking any laws, for the rest of the school day, I will give you your pen back. But, I do mean whatever I say, whenever I say it, no matter how embarrassing it may be for you. Deal?” he held out his hand for me to shake.
I looked at it suspiciously, as if it were a potential threat. “Is there absolutely no other way I could get it back from you?”
“It’s either that or ten million dollars, and I’m not negotiating the price. Just shake. You know me, I wouldn’t ever make you do anything that bad, would I?” he batted his eyelashes at me in a fake look of innocence.
Well, I did know him, and I doubt he’d make me do anything too embarrassing . . . . . yet I was still doubtful. But I was desperate and I knew there was no other way I was going to get that pen off him, without resorting to breaking and entering; he was just too stubborn. So, I stuck out my hand to shake his, this time knowing I would regret this decision. But, this time, I really had no other choice.
My last thought before I shook his hand raced through my mind like wildfire, What was I getting myself into?

I sat in the crowd, thinking over the crazy day I’d just had. I felt like a character from Ferris Bueller’s Day Off, only my story seemed crazier and more impossibly bizarre, if that’s even possible.
I’d just done some of the most outrageous and outgoing things I’d ever done - or even thought of doing – in my life, including some of the most embarrassing things I’ve ever done, some so humiliating I wouldn’t dream of telling anyone about them.
He’d left me with a smile, saying, “I’ve got to think up something really good for an opportunity as great as this. I’ll text you, okay?” and then he turned without getting an answer, leaving me in a state of bewilderment. I then made my way slowly to class, dreading the moment my phone would go off, signaling the first of many, many tasks.
They began with something relatively easy and simple, wearing an embarrassing-looking white wig for a full period that wouldn’t have been in fashion over 300 years ago and even George Washington wouldn’t have gone near it. Then I had to pour not one but two bright red slushees all over my white T-shirt and not change it until lunch. After that, I was forced to go into my school’s Olympic size swimming pool fully clothed and swim 8 laps, which depressingly nearly killed me and afterwards, my legs felt like Jell-O. Then, I had to walk around school in my soaked clothes and sneakers, but at least it got most of the red slushee out, though then my shirt turned permanently pink. Next, I became the master planner for (and was almost caught instigating) a record setting enormously large food fight that occurred in the cafeteria during 5th period lunch.
After lunch, I had to: Fill my own locker with shaving cream and when the periods changed, be humiliated and red-faced when I opened it and was dolloped by it like an enormous strawberry shortcake; dye my hair with paint from the art room until it resembled the tail of “My Little Pony,” and expertly deface every one of my pictures in every one of the library’s yearbooks with black sharpie.
After school, I had to run track in an old prom dress I had in my closet that was way too short and tight for it. Then, Max gave me a bit of a break, leaving me alone until an extremely boring baseball game at 6:30 which I was forced to endure for an hour and a half with Max sitting right next to me the entire time, torturing me with buttery popcorn (I’ll get to that later).
We sat in relative silence until half time, when something I don’t think either of us was expecting, happened. We starred on the Kiss Cam. As the camera pointed at us, and we could see our shocked faces looking back at us on the billboard at the back of the stadium, the crowd cheered us on, chanting for us to, “KISS! KISS!” It was short, sweeter than expected, and tasted of buttery nacho cheese popcorn.
After that, we quickly left the stadium in a slightly awkward silence and he dropped me off at my house while giving me another instruction, to go to the reunion funk concert at 9 o’clock while wearing an old 80’s costume complete with spandex, 4 inch neon pumps, miniskirt, and wig that would put Madonna’s 80’s perm to shame, which he pulled out of the trunk of his car. This is where I was now, in a crowd filled with a lot of old people, being forced to listen to a lot of bad music in a ridiculous outfit and wig that made my scalp itch.
But that’s not all. I also had to do several things all day, like wear a picture of Justin Bieber pinned to my back with (fake) lipstick stains covering his ugly face (I had always made it very known to Max how much I hated that despicable human being) and not being able to eat anything other than Brussels sprouts and/or radishes. So, at the concert and the baseball game, I was forced to ignore the wondrous smells wafting from concessions and various food stands: the smell of fried-everything-you-can-imagine, barbeque, ice cream, candy . . . . . and Max’s buttery popcorn. Oh, how good it smelled . . . . (give me a break I hadn’t eaten anything all day and I wasn’t about to resort to Brussels sprouts and/or radishes).
So as a boy walked down the aisle by me selling cotton candy, I couldn’t stop my mouth from watering and my eyes from getting a slight glazed-over look as I ogled indulgently at him. As a result, you can expect that when my phone started ringing and vibrating in my back pocket, signaling an incoming text, I got the shock of my life.
It was Max, with my next instruction. He was pushing his limits, we’d agreed on one day of torment, and it was 11:36 p.m. As I opened the message, the expected dread didn’t come over me. Instead, I felt a strange eagerness, as if I was excited for the next challenge in my quest for the pen. I suppressed the feeling, pushing it away and pressed, “OPEN.”
Though, the text wasn’t what I anticipated, it read, “Meet me outside, by the entrance to parking lot B.”
After reading the message once, twice, three times in confusion, I decided, what the heck, stood up, and started walking up the solid concrete steps out of the football stadium while being assaulted by bad 80’s funk music (they had set up a makeshift stage at the center of the field).
As I walked, I thought. As I thought, I rationalized. He didn’t mean anything by it; he’s probably just going to give me back my pen, nothing else. While I did feel the rush of excitement and relief at the very probable prospect of getting back my pen, I was surprised by the rush of disappointment at the almost certain fact of nothing else happening. Again I rationalized, I must’ve just been enjoying the challenges more than I thought I was and now I don’t want them to end. Yeah that’s it. . . . that has to be it. . . . I was only half-satisfied by my answer and my mouth twisted into a slight grimace as I inched through the crowd and up the stairs, getting a lot of odd looks as I passed by in my 80’s costume.
I eventually made it to the line of concession stands and various knickknack shops in the outside ring of the stadium, and turned right towards the exit to the parking lots. It didn’t take me long to arrive at parking lot B where a boy in a black jacket and jeans stood leaning against a signpost, twirling a mangled blue pen around his fingers, fluid as liquid and quick as a lightning strike.
I don’t know what went through my brain next, or whether I was running to the pen or to Max, all I know is that I was jogging, then running, then sprinting down the road to the sign where Max stood leaning. I don’t know what I would’ve done if I had reached that signpost, if I would’ve grabbed the pen from his nimble fingers and danced away before he could grab it from me again, or if I would’ve kissed him again, placing his lips on mine for all to see.
But I didn’t reach that signpost. Instead, the incredibly high pumps I had been wearing as a part of my 80’s costume broke at the heels and tripped me up, causing me to bend over and turn sideways. This probably saved my life.
The next 6 seconds were an eternity to me and in these long moments I had time to notice 3 vitally important things: for one, Max had turned to face me and was wearing a look of absolute horror. He was shouting something unintelligible and pointing at an object to the left of me. I turned and saw a sleek black Honda speeding towards me, smoke billowing furiously from behind the back wheels that were locked into place and screeching as the rubber came in contact with the concrete, creating dark black skid marks that trailed into the distance behind it. The last thing I noticed was a sound, a primal scream that was so loud and immediate that my entire body shook from listening to it. It was garbled and distorted as its vocal cords protested to the torture they were under in sustaining such a screech. The scream blotted out everything for what felt like hours but was probably less than a second, and all I could feel, hear, or experience was that scream and by the time I realized it was my voice creating that horrifying noise, my throat shaking under the pressure it was under due to the sound I was creating, I felt a jarring impact in my left side that sucked the air from my throat and cut off the scream that left my entire neck sore, and for a moment everything was completely and utterly silent before everything went black.
But, the blackness didn’t last long and out of the next 30 minutes or so, all I had were flashes; flashes of being shaken by Max as he checked for life in my now crushed body; flashes of tears of shock streaming from his eyes; flashes of him calling 911 and his deathly pale hand shaking as he gripped the outdated flip-phone; flashes of being roughly thrown on a stretcher and lifted into an ambulance, its signature red and blue lights flashing blindingly; flashes of entering a white sterile hospital, someone holding my hand so tightly it seemed to me that they were the ones needing immediate medical attention; flashes of doctors in white masks, holding heinous tools that would forever live in my nightmares; flashes of a needle being put in my arm, leaking a questionable cold liquid into my veins and of a mask being put on my face. Then I felt my eyes close and my breath come out loosely in a relaxed sigh as I drifted into an uncalled for - yet not unwelcomed – sleep.
I woke up in an uncomfortable hospital bed to the monotonous beeping noise of hospital machines doing their job – whatever that may be – at 1:09 in the morning two days later to the eager but clearly exhausted faces of my parents. The rest is history.

I opened my eyes and checked the clock; it was 10:57 on Thursday, the 17th of May. Wow, I thought, I must’ve been more tired than I thought. I tried to turn on my side and wipe the sleep from my eyes but remembered just in time that I was currently encased in plaster and that wasn’t possible without extreme pain. Though, before I realized that, I had already turned enough to see that at the top of my bedside table was a folded note written in scratchy blue ink with my grandmother’s ball point pen lying on top. My name, Taylor, was scrawled on front of the note in Max’s cramped handwriting.
I didn’t know whether to laugh or cry, be happy or angry. The reason I had gotten into a life threatening car accident was lying within reach of smashing, but it was also the precious pen I had worked so hard to get back because of what it meant to me.
So, instead I did nothing, choosing to wake up my father and read my note.
Unsurprisingly it took several minutes of almost-shouting to rouse him, and by that time, I was really interested in what words lay hidden under the folded paper, like spirits on the edge of escaping Pandora’s Box because of a girl’s curiosity. The only difference was that I didn’t know whether they were going to be good or bad.
After he handed me the letter, I unfolded it as quickly as I could while only using my right hand (because my left was broken), almost tearing the thin paper.



























I read it again, and then looked at those crossed-out lines and jumped to enormous conclusions and I had to tell myself to slow down. It doesn’t mean anything, I tried to tell myself, but I was too late. My hopes skyrocketed, and before I could cut the ignition fuse, they’d hit the moon.

The rest of the day, I was fidgety and impatient, waiting to see if Max would come back and visit me, but he never came; not that day, nor the next one, or the one after that, or the week that followed with me residing in that awful hospital room. Eventually, I gave up.

By the time I got out of hospital and was healthy enough to operate well enough on my own at home, it was the middle of June and my parents decided – Yay! – that I didn’t have to go back to school because I’d already missed finals and there was no point in me going. So, the rest of summer passed in me slowly healing and getting rid of my casts one by one while going through my weeks of physical therapy, and soon it was the end of August.

All summer long, my once precious pen had resided on my nightstand, and one morning, I looked at it and realized exactly what I should’ve done with it in the first place.

And now we come to today, August 29th, the day that would’ve been my grandmother’s 74th birthday. My mother and I were standing in front of her grave quietly, both of us lost in our own thoughts. I was completely healed, and I was happily enjoying the full use of all my limbs. Ever since I had recovered, I hadn’t sat or stood still for any long periods of time, fully appreciating the luxury of being able to use my arms and legs, today being the only exception.

I was clutching that blue pen in my right hand, and doing so so hard my knuckles were white. As if my hand couldn’t take the strain anymore, I quickly lay it down on the grass in front of her tombstone.

I felt a little breath escape through my clenched teeth in a puff of air that I didn’t know I’d been holding. I felt all my muscles relax and my mouth loosen into a small smile. I finally felt free of my grandma, felt as though I had let her go where she needed to go and though it stung a little and tears formed in my eyes, I was happy that I had finally freed her.

After this small rush of emotion, I realized two very important things. For one, if I hadn’t had that crazy day in May that culminated with my car accident, I would never have let go of my grandmother. I would’ve kept her with me in the little blue pen, and my life would always be a little empty - not fuller - with her in it. And for two, that the person who helped me with that, though he doesn’t realize what he’s done for me, was right in front of me, and I had to at least thank him, and explain all this to him, because he deserves that.

And for once, I knew exactly where to go from there.