Unfair (Looking for better titles)

I recently found a book that was basically the same story. I didn’t steal the idea, I promise. I found the book after I had already started this story. But I have been debating whether to continue writing it or not. Let me know what you think.

Have you ever noticed that some things in life seem to happen for no reason? Whether good or bad, things can just happen. Sometimes they’re fair and other times they’re unfair. Sometimes they make sense and sometimes they don’t. Like someone who wins the lottery. That’s a good thing, right? But what if the person is already rich? Then it becomes unfair and suddenly it doesn’t seem to make sense why someone who doesn’t need that money got it rather than someone who did. Or what about a man who’s on his way home from work and is in a head on collision with another car? The man dies, but the person in the other car walks away with just a broken leg, is that fair? But what if the man was a murderer? Then it seems to become fair. It’s justice, the man got what he deserved, right? And then there are things that just seem to happen for no reason at all. A little boy is diagnosed with cancer. A man loses his job and suddenly becomes homeless. Or a teenage girl is walking home from a friend’s house one night when a drunk driver runs a red light and kills her. That is definitely not fair, but that’s exactly what happened to me.

That was six months ago. I was fifteen and my friend Angela needed help with her English homework. So I went over to her house that night, ate dinner with her family and helped her with the massive amount of homework our teacher had sent home with us that day. By the time we were finally finished it was after ten. Angela’s dad offered to drive me home, but I declined, saying my house was just a couple of blocks away and it was a beautiful night. I failed to mention that though my house was only a couple blocks away I had to cross a major road to get to it. I should have taken the ride, because refusing it had gotten me killed.

I left Angela’s house and headed for home. When I got to the stop light at the major road I pressed the pedestrian button and waited for it to give the sign that said it was safe to walk. When the little walking man lit up I stepped out in to the road and started to cross. I saw a light out of the corner of my eye. I turned and was blinded by bright lights coming right at me. I didn’t have time to move, I barely had time to pull my arms up to cover my head. As the truck got closer I screamed but it was drowned out by the sound of the honking horn warning me to get out of the way. Then the whole world turned black.

I’m not sure what exactly happened next. That part of my memory is a little foggy. A jumble of me sinking in and out of consciousness. I remember waking up once or twice in a hospital room to find my mom sitting by my bedside, holding my hand. Her eyes were red and puffy from crying, and she looked more tired than I had ever seen her. Her dark red hair was pulled back and she seemed to have aged a good ten years. I couldn’t quite remember what had happened to me and I never had time to really focus enough to gather my thoughts before I was pulled back into a deep sleep again.
I remember waking up once and knowing that I wasn’t going to live. Knowing that this was the last time I’d see my mom, my last chance to tell her good-bye. I wanted more than anything to tell her that things would be okay. I wanted to tell her that I loved her and that I wanted her to move on and have a happy life after I was gone. But I couldn’t. I tried so hard, but I just couldn’t get the words from my brain to my mouth. Then breathing became extremely hard and once again I was sucked into darkness. But this time I wouldn’t come out of it.

I went to my funeral. It was a nice turn out, a lot of people that I never would’ve expected to be there came. There was a lot of crying and a few of my close friends even gave speeches, telling their favorite memories of me. Most of them didn’t make it through the story before they started sobbing. My mom sat in the front with my grandparents. She cried the whole time. I sat in the back next to Angela who seemed to be in shock. I tried waving my hand in front of her face to snap her out of it before remembering that she couldn’t see it. At the end they had one final viewing of my body. Everyone lined up to say their last good-byes. Except Angela. And me. I didn’t care much to see my dead body. I had seen it once already when they were transferring me to the morgue. It didn’t look anything like me. More like those wax figures that they make of celebrities. I wasn’t sure why Angela wasn’t going. Maybe for the same reason as me.

I rode home from the funeral with my mom. She cried in the car for a while before she pulled herself together enough to drive. On the way home I told her how much being dead sucked, but that it was cool that so many people showed up to my funeral. Some of them were people I had only talked to once or twice. I told her that I missed seeing her smile and I wished she would start feeling better so that things could get back to normal. Of course, she couldn’t hear a word I said, but that was fact I chose to ignore.

When we got home I went up to my room and laid on my unmade bed. I started thinking about how nice it was to talk to my mom again. Even if she couldn’t really hear me, I still liked having someone to share things with. It was almost like I was alive again. And then I started thinking that maybe things wouldn’t have to be that different. I could still go to school, hang out with friends, and talk to my mom. Maybe being dead didn’t mean I had to stop living, maybe it could just be more like a handicap. Something that I had to learn to live with.

And so the next day I went to school. I woke up (okay, I didn’t really wake up since I don’t sleep, but I got out of bed.), got dressed, headed down to breakfast, watched my mom pick at her cereal for a few minutes, asked her how she slept, told her that I didn’t sleep a wink, but that it didn’t effect me at all and I’d still be able to concentrate in school so she didn’t have to worry. After our nice conversation (by which I mean I talked and she listened), I gave her a kiss on the head and left for school.

I got to the bus stop and stood waiting among the familiar faces. When the bus arrived I got on and headed toward my usual seat next to Heather. But someone else was already sitting there. I think his name was Jared. He was in my History class, I think. I walked the rest of the way towards Heather with my chin up as if I didn’t care. When I reached her I stuck my tongue out. One good thing about being dead: I can do whatever I want. One bad thing about being dead: When you want to make someone mad, it doesn’t work very well. I muttered “traitor” as I moseyed on past her. I didn’t need her, I could stand in the middle of the aisle if I wanted to. Of course I didn’t want to, but if I had to I would.

Turns out that someone had saved me a seat. Erica was sitting near the back, by herself. I had known her since fifth grade when Lionel Williams was throwing sand in her face at recess. At first I calmly told him to cut it out. When that didn’t work I pushed him to the ground and shoved a fist-full of sand in his mouth. Of course he, being the baby he was, ran and told the teacher immediately. I got detention for a week, but it was worth it. Erica had been a reliable friend ever since.

I went and sat down next to her. As I sat I said hey and thanked her for saving me a seat. She just stared out her window. Then right as the bus was about to leave, a girl came up before the doors shut. She had blonde hair and blue eyes. She was tall and thin. And she was coming my direction.

“Hey,” she said when she reached us.
“Hey,” Erica and I said at the same time.

“Can I sit here?” She asked politely, pointing to the place where I was sitting.

“Sure.” Erica replied at the same time that I said, “Does it look like there’s room for another person?” The girl set her bag down and- get this- sat on me! She actually sat on me!

“I’m Kara.” She said clearly only talking to Erica.

“Erica.” Erica introduced herself. Obviously she had no intention of introducing me. I rolled my eyes and stood up. This was unbelievable. I went looking for another seat. If they didn’t want me around-which they obviously didn’t- that was fine. I could find someone else to sit with.

As it turned out there were no more seats left. I ended up standing in the middle of the aisle. Luckily, no one stared at me. The bus was noisy and every time we hit a bump, I went soaring into the air. I landed in someone’s lap once, but they didn’t seem to notice or care.

Oooh, I like it, Puck! ;3 I think you should definitely keep working on it, even if there already is a book like this. It's a cool story! I wanna read more!