The Other Side of the Beach

R

Roxy

Cadet
Chapter One ;)

::Melissa::

I had the perfect life. I was athletic, smart, popular, pretty, funny, I was everything. I was Melissa Miller, voted most popular girl in school, and 2003’s prom queen. That was until today.
The sun was fresh and new when some friends and I headed out onto the beach. Lindsay, my best friend, set up a blanket and umbrella while Jake, her boyfriend, and Theo, my boyfriend headed out into the water.
I laid on the blanket with Lindsay, sun tanning. We talked about the latest things happening in school. About our other friends, the two new kids, about make-up, and about cars.

I fell asleep and when I woke up it was very hot so Lindsay and I waded into the cool water. We joined the boys in roughhousing, splashing each other. It was when we started body surfing that the trouble came.
After a few perfect size waves came in we saw a huge wave off in the distance. We all dared each other to take it, so we all did. We turned our backs to the water and prepared. I squeezed my eyes tight as I heard it rushing up to us. Then I was spinning around in the water, I couldn’t breathe. I got my head above water and took a breath. The water smoothed and it was calm again. I relaxed and began to swim towards shore when I was all of a sudden being pulled out into the ocean. I choked, coming in and out of the water. I used all my strength to try to swim back, but the current was too strong. I screamed for Lindsay, Jake, and Theo, no one heard me and I finally had to give up. I let the water take me. I was exhausted and began to breathe in the water. I panicked yet again and bobbed my head up, screaming and choking. That’s the last thing I remember.

I’m here now in the “Waiting Room” for heaven. A woman named Hannah appears to be in charge. She greeted me and gave me the best roasted chicken meal I’ve ever tasted. She laid down a few facts about the Waiting Room, there’s over 50, you get tastes of heaven every now and then, and that you are here for punishment. I argued with her about why I have to be here for so long, (6 months). I told her that it wasn’t easy being popular, that there’s lots of pressure, and sometimes I didn’t have a choice whether to be mean to someone or not. I rolled my eyes enough to make a statement, but she didn’t believe me, she knew I was lying. I looked around the small room, there was an evil looking man, a bookcase, a few tables and chairs, and a counter with a door behind it that Hannah constantly went in and out of. I slept for what felt like days, every hour awake felt like a year. There was nothing to do in the Waiting Room.
All I thought about was how I didn’t belong here, how I should be in heaven, I deserve all the royalties on earth. I thought about my friends, they must miss me dearly. They probably don’t know what to do without me. Theo and Lindsay are probably crying at their homes, lying in bed, refusing to go to school. That’s how much they miss me.

A month passed. I thought the same nonsense over and over again, ‘What is everyone doing without me? Life is probably frozen. No one can live without me. The earth practically revolves around me. They better be frozen.’ There was nothing fun about oatmeal, sleeping, PB and J, thinking, stew, and then sleeping. I played with my food, tried to meditate, made up riddles; I did everything to keep interested.
One day I bothered the evil looking man sitting alone in his corner. I came over to him and said, “So you gonna be here forever? What’d you do? Kill a bunch of people? What hints of heaven have you gotten, me just the food. What keeps you from going crazy?” He glared at me, and said nothing. So I asked another round of questions, and another and another. He finally blew up and yelled, “I was a serial killer! I’ll kill again! I will! Get away from me or else it’ll be you!”
I ran away laughing, it was so fun, and I planned to do it again. Hannah was glaring at me. “Melissa why don’t you follow me into this room?” she said. “Ha, finally figured out it was about time for me to go to heaven? I didn’t belong here at all, I know. You don’t have to apologize.” I said walking through the door. “That’s not it at all Melissa. I’ve brought you here because this place is a place where bad people change. You are too vain, and self centered to change. So I’m gonna help you. She opened a small window, the only window I’ve seen for a long time. “Look through here, and while you watch remember that it is all because of you. All of it.” Hannah added before letting me look into it.

The sky showed a faint picture, it grew darker, and bolder. There was a girl sitting on her bed. I could read her thoughts. She looked down at the bottle of aspirin. She pushed down on the top and slid it uneasily. Her fingers quivered as the little, smooth pills poured onto her hand. She counted sixteen and put three back. She stared down at the thirteen pills in her hand; thirteen was a symbol of her life, unlucky. She didn’t want to die; she didn’t want to live either. She leaned against her pillow and stretched her legs out across the bed. She began to think, ’What happens when you die? What becomes of you? Do you just become nothing? You just stop existing? Does your mind die with you, or does it live on?’ She tried to imagine herself not there, she wouldn’t be able to talk to herself, not even think to herself. She shook her head; it was too complicated of a subject to think about.

She had often thought about death, more than once a day. Sometimes she thought that she was the only real person in the world, everyone else was just fake, not really there. When she finally died she would just be in a small white room, elevator size. She would realize that the whole world was made up in her brain, after all isn’t there a theory that the human only uses ten percent of his/her brainpower?
She walked into the bathroom with wobbly legs. She filled her glass cup with water and headed back to her room. She picked the pills off her hand, she was thinking so hard and forgot they were there and now they were all sweaty. She gave it one more thought, ‘any place is better than this place’, and popped the pills into her mouth. The sugary coating had worn off onto her hands and the pills tasted bitter. She took a swig of the water and flopped down onto my bed. She had done it; she was finally getting out of here. She fell into a restful sleep.

“Is she dead?” I whispered turning away from the window. “Not yet, but she will be in about an hour.” Hannah replied. “And umm, how does this have anything to do with me?” I asked. “She goes to your school. She killed herself because she was never welcome in yours or Lindsay’s presence. She was a nobody, no one cared about her. If you hadn’t been so stuck up with your head in the clouds you could have saved her. But you didn’t so she’ll be coming to this Waiting Room soon and I want you to become friends, understand?” Hannah said annoyed. All I could do was nod. I had some serious thinking to do.
I lay down on a green couch. Hannah was right, my head was in the clouds. I didn’t see normal kids, I only saw popular kids. I knew lots of people wanted to be my friends, and for some reason it always made me feel queenly when I put them down. Now I regretted it with all my heart. I actually made someone want to kill herself, and she did it. I began to cry with the realization that I had actually made some people want to be dead. I sobbed when I thought of all the great people I had over looked. I wanted to kill myself, not seriously, just to punish myself. Besides, I couldn’t anyway. I cried myself to sleep.

It's definantly not over yet :smiley: I'll post more either today or tommorrow. Comments would be appreciated!

-Roxy
 
I found myself sitting up on a green couch. “Why hello, Miss Javeson, we’ve been expecting you. How are you feeling?” asked a woman from behind the counters arranged in the back of the small room. She had a glow about her, I couldn’t figure out why. She had dark smooth skin and shiny dark brown hair. Her long fingers curved around a golden pen. “Where am I?” I asked suddenly remembering what I had done earlier today. Or was it yesterday, last month, last year? Had I really even done it? The woman looked up from her paper and happily replied, “You’re in the waiting room of course. Are you hungry, or thirsty? Anything I can get for you while you wait.” I nodded and the woman disappeared into a room behind a counter.

I looked around; the room was small, painted a cream color. There was a line of bookshelves in the back wall, a few tables with chairs set around them. The chairs looked just like the ones in my school library, rosy colored with wooden frames. The other wall had tons of signs, decoration, and paintings on it. I began to read them; I always loved restaurants with signs everywhere because you had something to do while you waited for your food. One read, ‘Yes, you actually are here.” I stared at it, astonished. The woman must of come back because she caught me staring at it and said, “Yes, you actually are here. You’re in the waiting room for the afterlife, heaven, whatever you’d like to call it. This is where you stay until you are invited, some people stay forever,” she said pointing at a woman with white hair sitting in a corner knitting. There was a man with dark brown hair slicked back with an evil look in his eye, and a little boy about 7 or 8 years old was sleeping on another couch. I shuddered, I would go crazy if was here forever. The woman pulled a chair out from under one of the tables and motioned for me to come sit there. She set down a tray with fussili noodles, ginger ale, and French bread on the side. The food was just the right temperature, had just the right taste. The bread was steaming and the sauce and noodles were rich. When I had finished, the woman came by and put a plate of warm pumkin pie. It melted in my moulth like cotton candy. “My favorite.” I whispered. She turned and looked me in the eye with an, “I know.”

After eating the warm meal I sat back putting my hands behind my head. “Thanks, that was great.” I said to the woman. “Just a taste of heaven.” she said winking at me. “So, it’s a heaven, the Christian kind?” I asked. “No, not really, I just say that because that’s what most people call it, it’s grown on me. It’s merely a place to go after life,” she said thoughtfully. “Am I going there, heaven?” I asked, using the word that came the easiest. “I’m not sure, why did you die?” she asked scanning her paper as if it said so on there. “Suicide.” I said looking down, ashamed. “Oh, right, Raven Javeson?” she asked finally looking up from her paper. “Right. So how long will I be here?” I repeated. “Well, for suicide, 5 months, unless something remarkable happens.” she said. My shoulders dropped and I collapsed over the table. “Don’t worry, it’s not that bad.” called the woman opening the door from behind the counter once again.

I closed my eyes, hoping this was all a dream, the food was a taste of heaven, so that meant I wouldn’t be treated that way this whole six months to a year. I fell into a deep sleep. No, it wasn’t dream. I pulled my hands through my dyed black hair; it fell back over my face as it usually does. I began to remember why I had done this to myself, why I had ended my life. .

I always sat in the back of all my classes. I used to believe I would be famous, so I kept a journal with me and wrote in it every few minutes, and even when I found I wasn’t exactly actress material I still kept my journal, as a habit. People would stare at me because I dared to be different; I probably was the only person in my entire high school who did things because I wanted to, not because someone else wanted me to do it. I had no friends not in school, not anywhere. Maybe my journal would count as a friend, it probably was the only thing that kept me alive so long. I would have killed myself much sooner if I hadn’t discovered the joy in writing. Recess was the worst, it wasn’t really that anyone would come up and say rude things to my face, it was how people huddled in groups, exchanging secrets about other girls, boys, everything. They were all so close-knit. I never had a friend I could really talk about things like that with; I was an outcast all my life. I envied the popular girls who had guys drooling over them and girls practically kissing their feet in order to become friends. Melissa and Lindsay were the worst. They were always giggling and whispering when they passed me, or anyone else.

I turned to the woman scribbling something in a book. “Umm.” I said trying to remember if the woman had told me her name. “Oh, how rude of me, I didn’t tell you my name. I’m Hannah,” she said apologetically. “No, don’t be sorry.” I muttered, relieved that I hadn’t forgotten her name. “Are you hungry? I’ll be making oatmeal soon,” she shouted as she walked through the door. Great, oatmeal, my arch enemy. So, no this place wasn’t going to be as great as yesterday. I began to get lost in my thoughts of disappointment until I noticed a confused looking elderly woman appear next to me on the couch. Hannah greeted her as she did with me and offered her a delicious meal.

I hadn’t noticed the small body curled up on a couch in the back until now. She had her bleach blonde hair wrapped around her face. She looked about my age. She turned her body so that she was laying on her back, brushed her hair out of her face, and opened her eyes. I gasped, it was Melissa.
For a few days we glanced at each other to see what we were doing. If we happened to make eye contact we’d look somewhere else right away. Finally Melissa walked over to me and sat down next to me. “Hi. I’m Melissa, um what’s your name?” she said without looking at me. “You don’t even know my name? I went to the same school as you for years. Oh that’s right, you were to busy being popular.” I said, I was mad at her. “I’m sorry, I really am.” She whispered, looking me in the eye this time. “I’m Raven.” I answered. “That’s a cool name.” She said, forcing a smile. “You don’t have to be my friend you know.” I said. “Yes I do.” She answered, and so it began.

We got a little more comfortable with each other. We looked in the crevasses of the Waiting Room for a glance at heaven. We peaked through cracks, looked under the couches, picked up and looked under all the rugs. Hannah wouldn’t give us a word on the subject. I suggested asking the man who always sat in the back of the corner but she answered that with, “No, trust me you don’t want to. It’s a long story.” We exchanged stories on heaven, crazy ideas of death that we thought of before we actually did die. We talked about the two different sides of the world we were in. I awed at her life, she frowned at mine. I was beginning to forgive her, and like her.


More to come! Glad my 2 readers liked it lol.

-Roxy
 
::Melissa::

Raven wasn’t so bad after all. She was funny, and it was even funnier because she didn’t know it. She was becoming a close friend. There was only about a month to go for the both of us before we left for heaven and our main subject was what would be in heaven, and what we wanted to be in heaven. “Plants!” Raven would shriek gleefully. She loved plants, it was easy to tell. “Cats, and ice cubes!” I’d laugh. When the Waiting Room got hot we would always comment on how nice it would be to suck on an ice cube, so we always wanted ice cubes in heaven.

Hannah called me over to her and led me inside the door a few days later. “You’ve made good friends with Raven. What have you learned?” she quizzed. I gave my heart in the answer and she looked content . . . but she wasn’t. “I want you to tell her what you saw, how she died. And when you’re done, you both will go to heaven.” She pushed me outside and I was left there to alone with Raven.

“Hi Raven.” I said, clearing my throat. “What’s wrong?” she demanded right away. “You see, there is something I’ve been meaning to tell you. When I first came to heaven my head was still in the clouds, I wouldn’t stop thinking about myself. I needed a hint in the right direction so Hannah showed me something. She showed me you, while you were dying. I just want you to know that I’m so sorry for the way I treated you, If I had the chance I would go back to being alive just so I could hang out with you.” I smiled, what I said was so true. I watched worry, confusion, and then a smile creep over Raven’s face.



::Raven::

I was touched, truly touched. Melissa’s small but meaningful speech went straight to my heart. I felt tears coming on, she hugged me. “We get to go to heaven now! And eat ice cubes!” she laughed when I had calmed down. Hannah led us through the door. We sat down on two rosy chairs and looked through the window. “Heaven is everything you want it to be. Yours may be different from others. Just remember, everything is there because of a longing in your heart,” whispered a voice from the window as pictures of heavens glowed through the window. Then we were lost in the nothingness of death yet again.

We awoke with warm water rushing over us. I sat up and saw the huge, clear ocean in front of me. It was a beauty. I stood up and began to brush the sand off of me when I noticed, there was none on me, and my clothes had dried. That’s heaven for you, I guess. “Melissa?” I said seeing her lying there with her eyes closed. “Isn’t this nice?” she murmured. I pulled her up and we turned to face a huge house. Some parts of the house were two stories, some were one. It was painted a rich tan color, it was wonderful. Inside was even better. I fell in love with the squishy couches, stainless steel kitchen, and library full of short novels. We each even had our own parts of the house. I had my own sitting room, bedroom, and bathroom all in Hawaiian design. Melissa’s part of the house was full of bold pinks and golds. I could tell she loved the thought of royalty. I had a balcony, full of orchids, ferns, grapevines, and big leafy green plants.
When we finished exploring the plants Melissa came up with an idea. “Let’s send Lindsay some new thoughts.” She giggled. “Yeh, some better thoughts.” I said. We rushed into the basement, with a window. We looked through the window together and saw Lindsay closing her locker. We shut our eyes tight and sent the same message to Lindsay, ‘Don’t overlook great people. No matter what.” We opened our eyes; Lindsay was standing very still, shutting her eyes tight. They snapped open, she noticed an old friend walk by. Sharon Walker, she changed from being popular to being normal a while ago when she discovered her love for art. “Hey Sharon! Over here!” Lindsay yelled. Sharon cautiously walked over to Lindsay. “Umm, hey Lindsay.” “Hey, wanna have lunch with me today?” she asked. A grin spread from ear to ear on Sharon’s face. “Yeh!” They walked down the hall together exchanging new gossip and laughing. Lindsay smiled at the thought of a new, better Lindsay.

We ran outside and sat down on the beach, eating ice cubes. “Why do you think our heaven is a beach?” I asked Melissa. “I think a few months ago it would be because I wanted to live that day over, so I could be back to my perfect life. Now I think it’s still because I want to live that day over, but I want you in it. You an all the other people I overlooked.” She said thoughtfully. “You’re a great person Melissa,” I whispered. I was once again touched by her words. She was smarter, and more thoughtful than I had thought. There had always been a great person inside of her, and it’s too bad that I am the only person that knows that side of her, that side of her beach.


Kinda corny now that i read it over . . . . but ya. Hope you all liked it :smiley:

-Roxy
 
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