spent the whole day at the sick bay..sleeping ! ._. yea after the australian math crap [which we had to endure the evil eyes frm susan lim bcos the majority of us slpt throughout the paper..we got scolded frm her cos of tht !! we were done w the paper so obv we sleep right !? then what ?! -rolls eyes- ]
had company throughout my day camp at the sick bay -- before recess there was elaine suffering from some eye thingie. after recess carol+xin had headache too ! xin's really a poor kid. one side of her nose was bleeding and the other side was blocked. ._.
lunch today : daisy hi-lo fresh milk + 2 tablets. ._. it sure was yummy.
but at least it worked :) now i can jump and skip and shout and scream and whoopee ! :D haha. oh wait -- think my headaches coming back. ahh. fuck.
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monday
towned w reenx, nana, wanxin and yanni !! s2unity gathering or smth. haha. was really fun tho lizzie mcguire sucks. really lame show. do not watch it unless you intend to only look at lizzie mcguire acting cute for 2hours straight. and we met really mean ppl ! nana brought ths yoshinoya food and aate it at long johns cos we were all eating thr n ths weird worker by the name of benny lim kpt walking past our table and glaring at tht packet of food. and i really mean glaring ! as soon as nana ruffled the plastic bag and took out the food, his sharp ears cautioned him and he immediately zoomed to our table and started scolding us !! : 'please do not eat outside food here ! do you know its very offensive ?' blahblahblah. a whole buncha crap. and he spoke really harshly. found out tht long john's a halal restaurant and yoshinoya is not. oh well. he could at least chill a lil. she didnt evn open the cover of the food yet.
anothr incident ws in the theatre..ths really flat-faced ugly bitch was sitting in frnt of us and i dnt knw wht happned bt i think someone was talking and she turned ard and said sharply : can you lower down your volume !? and we were lyk v shocked. cos if anyone was talking, it was really muffled and soft cos we ourselves didnt hear anything. and yanni or somebody was lyk : huh ? we werent talking .. and she turned ard and glared at us : SHUT UP ! she roared. mad right !? l8r on we saw her standing outsyd cine peeling off one side of her heels and whacking her ugly boyfriend with it, w a very pissed off look on her face. and her boyfriend, who has ths pair of really ku-ku black specs and is shorter than her by probably one head, was laughing ! oh my. crazy couple. wht is the world coming to ?
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shall continue w the story. :)
for some reason, my brother has elected to shave his head before the trial. he looks like a thug, and as soon as he is sitting up there in that cheap wood box, i can see him as the jury sees him : a loser, a danger to himself and the society. even i lose respect for him as he sits there mumbling his responses to the barked questions of the peosecutor.
the trial takes fours days, and the jury, a collection of people with dull, mean eyes, deliberates for two hours. they pronounce wade guilty and the judge says a few words about learning his lesson and sentences him to one month of house arrest, which means he has to wear this ankle tracking-device thing that will alert the police if he leaves our house. bonnie doesnt even show up at the courthouse.
this is how my brother spends his captivity : he sits in the backyard with the portable phone on his lap and calls bonnie about every 30minutes. he talks to her mother, who tells him shes sorry, but bonnie says not to call anymore. and he talks to her father, who says, 'son, this is not right. you will see that someday.' and then, after a week of calls, 'damn it, wade. we're calling the police,' which they do.
wade's probation officer calls and tells him that if he continues to harrass bonnie, he will request that wade spend the remainder of his sentence in an actual jail.
my brother loses weight. his eyes seem to pop out a bit, and there is a little rash of acne under each cheekbone. he doesnt look good, but i dont tell him that.
on the day the house arrest ends, wade drives his truck over to the lab where bonnie works. he doesnt go in or try to call first ; he just drives over there and waits in his truck.
when she emerges from the peach-colored building, he doesnt know what to say. she walks quickly across the parking lot to her old honda and drives away. wade just sits there, watching her. she doesnt even notice him.
his is not drunk when he crashes his truck. its just another accident, like the ones that happens everyday. wade is the guy lying on the side of the road, delaying traffic.
when the hospital calls, my mum and i are in the kitchen washing lettuce. she leaves the sink full of water, the leaves floating in there like lily pads, and grabs my arm. i know it is something terrible, but it isnt until she has pulled out of the garage and wound her way over to the freeway on-ramp that she says, ' your brothers in the hospital. '
a bright light pops in the back of my head and my teeth begin to chatter. i dig my nails into my palms and say, 'oh God,' over and over again until my mother shushes me.
wade is in the icu, already practically dead. they need my mother so they can pull the plug and use his organs on other people. his headis wrapped in a gauze and his eyes are swollen shut. there is a tube taped to his mouth and a needle in his arm. machines breathe and beep and purr. the black shapes on the floor are his blood. my mother pulls a chair over to his bed and presses his hand to her forehead. she isnt crying, just sitting with her eyes closed, holding wades hand.
i am standing against the door looking at him with something that feels like disgust. i think about how i will act when he gets home, how i will be distant and aloof, how i will make him earn my affection back. i leave the room to call bonnie. she will be sorry now, i think.
it takes forever for her to come to the phone, and when she does, she says, 'what?' like i have interrupted something horribly important.
'i just thought you would want to know that wades in the hospital.'
she sighs.
'hes in the icu,' i say.
i can hear her swallow, and then she asks what happened in the laziest voice you can ever imagine.
' he crashed his truck on the freeway. he totalled it. i think he's going to die.' my voice swings into a whine and i start to cry. when i start, i cant stop. bonnie is listening to me and i just stand there crying into the phone, unable to speak.
'should i come?' she says
'no,' i choke back. 'its your fault,' then i hang up. i hate her like a burn, but i hate myself more for not knowing to hate her sooner.
i stand there staring at the directions printed on the phone, the little drawings of coins and the long fingers of a woman depositing them into the proper slot. i stand there till a man asks me if im finished.
when i go back into wades room, my mother is standing away from the bed with her arms folded.
'say goodbye to your brother,' she says, as if he is leaving on vacation, going away to camp. i stare at her from the doorway. 'say goodbye to wade, cassie.'
when i go to my brother, it is as if im in one of those nightmares in which i cannot move my feet. i cannot look at his swollen face, the eyelashes crushed with bits of dried blood, the stretched, yellow sheen of his cheeks. i take his arm, cradling the perfect smooth stump of a hand in my own. it is warm, alive, and i stroke the place where a hand should be, touching the little thumb, running my hand up and down the smooth skin on the inside of the elbow.
my mother nods and then comes and takes wade's good hand. the doctor detaches the respirator from his mouth, leaving the end of the blue tube sticking up like a snorkel from his lips. we do not know he is gone until the doctor puts his hand on my mothers shoulder.
my mother lays wade's hand across his chest and i do the same with his other arm. on our way out, she signs some papers. his heart, his liver, his kidneys ; they can take what they want.
i stand there at the nurses' station. i want to tell them my brother just died. then a thought comes to my head, something to make them like him, make them care that he's gone. 'he was a nurse's boyfriend,' i say. my mother looks at me and squints. she is crying now and i expect her to correct me. instead, she grabs my hand and says my name, 'cassandra,' like a whisper.
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oh ! and before i forget, i passed my math test regardless of the fact tht i plotted the graph the othr way !! :) with a little golden -- okayy it was a yellow star nxta it !! :D yipeeee !! -faints from happiness-
