It was from a deal with the Devil

The month of February is almost done and I can say that I significantly failed in my goal to write something new every day. Well, perhaps not significantly. In any case, I built some fairly sturdy launch pads so there's an increasing chance that Snugglekitty won't be a pile of shit. To celebrate, here's yet another unrevised, rough draft of a piece that ultimately might not even go in the book.

2/27 No Title

When Sarah was very little, she had a sickness that grew from her crippled left leg, left her other limbs twisted and deformed. It kept her in and out of wheelchairs until she was seven and the doctors decided it would be best to amputate the leg before the sickness could twist her limbs further. Long summers in the hospital were passed with books about princesses who were swept away by their Prince Charmings, mounted atop white horses and Sarah wished that could be her life.

Years passed and Sarah’s mind grew while her body remained a husk, twisted against itself, against her. Her friends saw past this and loved the girl with the gentle smile whose eyes, smile were a window to her imagination and Sarah could see her stories played out in her friends’ relationships while she read in her room--not always alone; sometimes, when her arms ached, her nurse read to her, chaperoned her love affair with fiction.

The summer after her sophomore year, Sarah met Jesse and one look into his brown, meaningful eyes told her she had found the Prince Charming from her books. Then Sarah began to write. Poems and short stories about the imprisoned princess set free by True Love. A glance down at her broken body would bring her back to the world. How could he love this--lump of flesh?

On days she saw him, though, her hope in Love’s long shot was restored--he was gentle, kind, made her smile, loved her stories, asked for more. And, one day, sitting in the park together in the shade, he told her sheepishly that he had feelings for someone. Sarah’s books had taught her how to play it coy and she probed gently, her heart beating inside her broken chest, longing for the words it’s you.

And, as if to acknowledge how much time she had spent in books, the world played a little word joke on her: it’s your nurse.