"I Love You" by Dylan N

Late December, With an bitter cold storm approaching a small Illinois city, the families that could gathered together in the cozy houses. Their windows ablaze with with candles and chimneys relieving small hiccups of smoke and steam into the brisk night. Upon the rarely cleaned and aged cobble stone paths, those less fortunate grasping one another to conserve what warmth they have. Most understand the oncoming storm is likely to take the lives of more than one of them. Food scarce and ribs showing would not be the worst of the problems the cities poor would experience. Within the masses of the shivering and the scared, a small girl no older than the age of eleven. Her name long forgotten, brushing away with the pass of those who look at her with sympathy but take no action. In her seemingly last hours she recalls her past, her previous life, and those she loved. Her 9th birthday was around the corner and all she could think about was the silky, maroon dress that sat in the window of the shop across from her home. She knew her mother, a tireless and underpaid worker couldn't afford such a dress, and when her the day arrived she had no hope of anything special. She spent her birthday with a few friends whose family were much better off than her own, and returned home later that night. Entering her home as she had so many times before, she saw her mother sitting in the same worn wooden chair, looking especially exhausted. Her mother then willed her to check the bedroom that the two shared. Upon the bed the dress that she so desperately desired sat, as if awaiting the young girl's arrival. Not even the 7 day flood could compare to the amount of emotion that filled the girl’s heart. A brief smile seemed to work its way across the cracked and light blue tinted lips of the girl who sat besides the long abandoned bakery. More of her memories shoved their way back into her complex mind. Her mother's illness that she was too innocent to understand at the time. The illness that ate away at the income, and dragged her mother back, no matter how hard her faught. The girl would come home to find her frail mother weeping in pain under the thin scratchy sheets of the bed. Until the day that the she would be orphaned and left to fend for herself in a world that would never spare her a moment. A single tear crawled down the gaunt and and grime covered cheek before splashing onto the newspaper that covered the bare holes left in her torn clothes. The tips of her fingers now so cold they could not feel the silky texture of the only reminder of her mother. Snow now falling and icy winds striking and slashing at the girl's face and exposed flesh, she let go of all that held her together. Coming apart at the seams not unlike the her 9th birthday present, her voice almost inaudible against the wind manages to squeak out “i love you”, before passing into the bleak whiteness of the impenetrable storm.