Dradt 2

    “ I am sorry for everything I’ve done to you, I love you Karen.” Those were his last words he said to me. Andrew was young when he passed away. He spent a day at the hospital with treatments that never worked but made it worse for his survival. It was the winter of 2004 when I’ve meet Andrew in our Biology 105 class. We both went to college together. We had a project together, so we spent majority of the time together. We got to know each other and he became my best friend. Two week passed and we went out almost every weekend. The project was to design a DNA model from daily things we used. We had so many things that we used that we designed two models. Andrew told me that night he was catching feelings for me and I confessed:

“ So am I.”

we decided to wait before anything serious. Days we spent together went by quickly and every moment we spend together we made it last. Andrew grew up in New York City and I grew up in New Brunswick, New Jersey. Rutgers was our college, our moment in life were we meet . Andrew was always looking at everything from the positive side, he wasn’t negative. Everything he did was beautiful and creative. His imagination was like a 5 year old but a mind of a 20 year, which was his age. I had trouble in my English class so Andrew helped me through my difficulties and eventually I passed the semester. Finals week was around the corner. Everyone was stressed but not Andrew, he was calm and was always positive. Andrew only had 3 finals and by the end of wednesday he was done. I was studying for finals that I had the whole week. Andrew stayed up with me every night studying and making sure I understand everything and every question was answered. I was ready for these finals and I was confident. At the end of the week, Friday night a couple of friends, Andrew and I decided to get out of stress from the finals. We decided to head to the club. All night Andrew and I danced. Sweat dripped down our bodies. It was crowded, so everyone was on top of each other. Songs were played and ever song was enough to dance together. The club was very hot and bodies on top of bodies made it worse. We stopped dancing for a bit for a drink.

“ I love dancing with you.” Andrew said.
“ So do I. OMG this is my song lets go dance”. I said to Andrew.

    He grabbed my waist, my hands around his neck. He turned me around. We were grinding on each other. His chest was sweating, he told me he loved me. I spinned , kissed him. His lips were soft , hot and pink. He asked:

“ Do you want to be mine?”
“YES” I answered with excitement.

    December 20, 2004 was the night that everything turned true and real. Andrew ans I were together and we were both strong and we had our hopes high to keep a strong relationship. Christmas was next week and we both had plans to go back home. December 23, 2004, I headed to New York while Andrew stayed in New Brunswick.  I was staying for 2 weeks to spend New  Year’s with my family. Before I left, I gave Andrew his christmas present. I told him:

“ Don’t open it yet, wait ‘til christmas day”.

He gave me my present as well. Christmas day was here and I missed Andrew a lot and I needed to see him. This was the first time I was apart from him. I was happy to be with my family but I wanted to be with Andrew too. Christmas morning he texted :

“Merry Christmas babe, I miss you dearly, enjoy your day with your family. Text me when you can. I <3 YOU :)”
“ Merry Christmas to you too, I miss you so much as well, I love you too :)!” I texted back.

That night I had a great time with everyone. Ar 2am I got a text from an unknown number. It was a picture. A guy kissing a girl, Andrew was kissing another girl. Andrew cheated on me. I saw this picture and it destroyed me completely. I spend the rest of the days crushed and Andrew texted and called but I didn’t answer. I got back to campus and Andrew was waiting for me infront of my door.

“Hi babe” he said.

I looked at him and just looked away. I opened my door, he asked:

“Why haven’t you texted or called me back, what’s wrong?”
“You’re a cheater, I don’t want to see you.”
“What are you talking about Karen?”
“The picture of you kissing some bitch on Dec. 25th at 2am. I got a text”
“What are you talking about?”
“THIS PICTURE!”

I showed him the picture. I was so angry, tears started to drip from my eyes.

“Babe, I was drunk”
“WTF , why would you do that?”
“I am sorry babe, I don’t remember what I was doing.”
“ Get away from me, get out.”
“Babe I am sorry, I love you.”

When he said “ I love you” my heart knew I had to forgive him. He hugged me and all I did was cry, cry tears of pain.

“ Don’t fucking do that again babe.”
“I am sorry babe.”

He kissed me and I knew I had to forgive his apology. I lost trust in Andrew, and he knew he had to gain it back again. Days cam and days went. Our relationship wasn’t strong as before. Andrew and I started to become apart from each other. One night he called me over to his room, I decided to go. He’d opened the door and all I saw was a table with a candle light and his room smelled like flowers. The sweet, soft voice of his his when he said:

“Come in babe, I hope you like this, this is all for you.”

Andrew prepared a lovely dinner. Steak, well cooked, rice white rice accompanied with a salad and water.

“ I am sorry Karen, I never meant to hurt you and I feel guilty for what I did, I am very sorry, forgive me?”

I had to think twice for this. Seconds went slow and I decided.

“I forgive you Andrew.”

He jumped with excitement , hugged me really tight that I smelled his shower gel.

“I love you Karen.”
“And I love you too Andrew”.

We watched a movie but all of a sudden Andrew started to bleed from his nose. IIt became unstoppable. I took him straight to the hospital. It was 2am on a tuesday in March. The night seemed endless and I didn’t know what to do. We arrived at the hospital and Andrew was treated in the emergency room. That night was the beginning, the beginning to an end. Hours passed before I saw Andrew. His parents had arrived at the hospital. Doctor Mackley, Andrew’s specialist wanted to speak with his parents. They talked and all I saw was Andrew’s mom, Kimberly crying, crying intensely. They came over and Andrew’s dad, Mathew said to me:

“Karen, I don’t know how to tell you this, ummmm......”

He took a long pause. My heart was racing and pumping extremely fast. I felt my lungs cramping up.
“Andrew has cancer and its spread all over his lungs.”

I didn’t know what to do. I squatted down and cried. Tears and pain inside was all I felt. This couldn’t be happening. The doctor had said Andrew wanted to see me. I headed to his room and in a couple of seconds I was on the side of his bed. His face was pale, his lips red as a rose, his hair, as usual.

“Karen”

His voice called me with pain that broke me into tears.

“ I am here Andrew, shhhh babe.”

I couldn’t let him see me like this. I tried to hold my tears inside.

“I have to tell you something, I am sorry for what I did, you’re my everything and as I lay here all I want is for you to forgive me and never let me go”
“ I forgive you babe and I will never let you go” I replied.

Tears and tears came down like waterfalls and that’s all I felt. He grabbed my hand kissed it and pull me to him.

“I love you baby.”
“I love you too.”
And with his last kiss he said goodbye. He died in front in me and I yelled with terror, calling him to come back. I knew life wasn’t going to give him another chance. I knew this was my fault. The doctor had said that Andrew knew he was diagnosed with cancer a couple of months ago. This was my fault, I took something so small affect us for months and in one night he was gone, taken away from me. I would never forgive myself for this. Maybe one day, I will see him and as I told him “I will never let go” became my motivation for life since his death.

Reflection:
Based on my notes, I don't plan on changing anything because I like it the way it was edited by my peers.  My protagonist does have and internal desire which is to be loved by her partner and not get treated the way she was treated previous. She doesn't have and external desire. The message I would like to communciate to the reader would be that being cheated is one of the worst thing that could be done in a relationship and that sometimes because of this you are left with a burden or even more hurt than you can ever be. My hopes on my fiction piece are to have a high standing piece and to be able to communciate what I want to be said to the readers. I chose to write about this because from personal experience and also because I have seen other people go through the same thing. What intrigues me about my story is that I can put everything I want that goes through my head down. Also because I feel like I am expressing my feels as Karen.