Home | Contest | Write A Book | Write Ebooks For Cash | Be A Travel Writer | Write Children's Books Write For Newspapers | Write An Ezine | Write A Blog | Writing Skills & Tips | Novel Writing Software Please take a moment to bookmark this site and join our free hot tips list. Read & Rate Our Writing Contest Entries! See what other people have written, and rate them on a scale of 1 to 5. This is an opportunity to view a wide variety of short stories and see what kind of original material is being submitted to us on a daily basis. After you rate an entry, you will be randomly redirected to another entry to rate. You may read and rate as many entries as you wish! The user-rating system is simply a fun way for writers to receive a public opinion of their work, and does not affect the judging for the cash prizes. If you wish to enter the contest, you may enter for free here. Rate This Contest Entry: Contest: June 30th, 2005 Author: Chelsea Turowsky "I'm OK", she says aloud, but to no one. Because she is alone in a new room, she is alone in her new life. College is a fresh start, she has been telling herself. College itself was a particularly difficult choice for her, as it is for most students in their last intense year of high school. The actual selection however, was not the difficult part. It was more the financial situation. To find with great excitement that she was accepted to Boston University and then to learn that she could not afford to attend was, in one word, heartbreaking. She wasn't sure about the University of Delaware, and she wasn't sure about majoring in pre-med. Sitting motionless in her fresh new furniture, thinking about how hard adjusting will be, she still isn't sure. She had spent her high school years working hard, striving for what she thought as the best, endulging herself in every art class available. But how much money could she possible have made pursuing this dream? She picks up her phone, begins dialing, and with an expression on her face that explains that she is deciding a great deal of things, she places down the phone. Naturally, she knows what is bothering her, that it's not just college and it's not only her loneliness. It is the same memory that has been playing in her head on repeat for the past three years. Those last words, the last time she saw or even spoke to her mother. To hear and distinctly remember the fight she had had with her mother three years ago, is a nightmare for Ashley. That was the last time she and her sister could even speak to each other without watching every word, forgetting but trying so hard to remember which memories were not to be mentioned. She stares at the photo of her mother on her desk, a stranger's desk, a desk so many had used before her. It's very hard for her not to be mad at her mother, at least not as mad as she was on that lonely carride to the cemetery twelve months after the accident. She could feel her sister's stare in that car ride but ignored it. How long had it been since they had last really spoken? She stares at this photo remembering hating being so mad, still hating her anger. Why was she so angry when she so desperately wishes to be strong? She wants so much to take care of her sister, but she is pushed away. She senses they are gradually pushing each other away. Each of them have had the same bright photo in the same gold frame for three years now, since their stepfather gave it to them. Three years ago was the last time their father permitted them to speak with him. He still sends her emails, the same emails that he has been sending since they moved away. She cries when she sees these emails, crying when she reads them and crying even harder when she does not. Her and her sister do not speak of Ed, of his emails, of the pain they know he feels and of how much they miss him. They do not speak of his existence. Her train of thought is broken from the commotion outside of her window. Roommates reuniting with squeals of laughter. She does not have a roommate. She had requested one, but she had somehow ended up in singles dormitory and had not known when or how to speak up. The lack of a roommate may, and will most likely, be a problem for Ashley. She can't bear to be alone. When she is alone, when she is left by herself, she will think. She thinks about big things and little things, but most of the time, she thinks about those things that she tries especially hard not to think about. Ashley thinks about her mother. She is not like her sister. Chelsea loves to be alone. Chelsea can sit for hours in her room, sometimes she thinks Chelsea would rather sit alone than sit with her. Ashley did not see her sister's pain. Ashley did not witness her sister's self destruction. Chelsea was careful to protect her sister from knowing, from seeing, from feeling the remnants of her own pain. Ashley did not see Chelsea's tears fall as she struggled to sleep, and she did not hear Chelsea's footsteps as she would creep out of the house in the middle of the bitter night. "Chelsea is strong," she tells herself. 'I will never be strong." Ashley will never know about the night that her sister drank too much, and cried too much, so much that her friends had to rub her back for hours, and tell her that everything would be all right, that it was not her fault, until she finally fell asleep. As she sits in her chair, Ashley turns from the window. She turns away from the laughter. She goes over the night before in her head. Dinner with her family had consisted of toasts to her achievements, laughter, the talk of the excitement to come and how excited she must be. If so, why was she not more excited? She hated herself for her not being as excited as they desired her to be- as excited as she pretended to be. It was the separation. In her eyes, as sisters they were already separated. Their lack of words for the past three years affected her, and was still affecting her, in too many ways, ways that she could not bear to deal with. Suddenly she is remarkably tired, exhausted even. For six steps, the walk to her bed takes forever. Her head hits her new pillows hard, it's a surprise how easy sleep comes. It's never this easy. Her dreams of her mother's face are vivid and real. Does Chelsea dream of her? Ashley wakes up in a daze, and The phone is ringing. Who would be calling? It takes three rings to find the phone. "Hello? Hello?" She is still half asleep. "Ashley? It's me. I miss you." 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