Writing Feedback / 'Gillian and Mum' - Creative Writing - help needs to be proof read [6]

i know it isn't an essay but please help me

Looking through a box that hadn't been opened in many years I came across a photo of a teenager about sixteen. She had mid length curly blonde hair, braces, a pink dress and black polished shoes. She sat alone at a table.

"Gillian, how about you go have a dance with your sister? It is her twenty-first birthday" Mum asks me as I stare at the ground. "I don't want to" I reply. She sighs but walks away. I look up. My sister is walking over now. "Gillian, please come have a dance" She outstretches her hand to me, but I don't take it. "I don't know anybody here Georgina" I say to her. "Well come with me, I'll introduce you" She pulls me up and I'm off at a half run behind her. She is talking to everybody so easily. Why can't I be like that? She is trying to include me and I am grateful for that but I just don't know what to say. I take my hand back and go and sit back down. After awhile somebody catches my eye. He has short brown hair pushed up at the front and messed at the back; He is wearing a blue jacket, white undershirt with washed denim jeans. He is smiling. I am stuck staring at him. It's like my eyes are magnets and I can't pull away. He looks around the room and looks right at me. Our eyes stare into each others. I don't want to look away but I do. I get up and walk outside. I had never had that feeling before. I had never had the feeling of someone looking at me when there are others around. I am used to being invisible. I had never had the feeling towards someone so strong and overpowering.

"Gillian, will you come in here please?" Aunty Mae is calling for me. "I thought I would introduce you to someone" she turns around and calls for someone whose name I miss. He walks over. He has taken off his blue jacket. "Gillian this is Shane, our new exchange student and Shane this is Gillian, our niece" he extends his hand to me. "Hello" he says in is heavy Irish accent. His hazel green eyes sparkle as he looks into mine. "I like your jacket" I stutter and look at the ground and immediately regret what I had just said. Silence. "Erm..Thank you" he replies putting his hands in his pockets. I turnaround and walk back into the hall and through the crowd. I can't believe what I had just done. I completely embarrassed myself. I feel like I am sitting on the step for an eternity listening to the music play and hearing people laugh when I hear someone walking towards the door.

He sits down beside me. "There you are. Have you been out here all this time?" I don't answer his question. I don't know what to say. He bends his head down to see what I'm looking at but I'm not looking at anything in particular. "Here, Its getting cold and since you like it so much" he hands me something, it's the blue jacket. "Thank you" I say looking up at him. "Oh so you do talk" I had to smile. "And she smiles. Can I get her to laugh though? That is the real question here"

I put the photo down smiling and pick up something different from the box. A letter that has been read a thousand times over. A letter that has been cried over. A letter that I held onto every night and will never let go. I open the envelope like all the times before now. I can hear his accent saying the words as I read over it. "Gillian, I wish I could stay and spend every waking moment with you and never leave your side. I wish I could see your smile and hear your laugh everyday. I wish I could hold your hand wherever you went. I wish I could wrap my jacket around you and hug you and never let go but the thing that hurts me the most is I can't because tomorrow I have to leave you. I have to get on a plane and when I get off I will be hours away from you, for the first time in two years and that makes me feel like a hundred knifes are stabbing me in the heart. I want to thank you for everything you have given me, all the times you made me laugh, all the times you listened to me and all the times you told me you loved me. I've dreamed of meeting the one I'll love all my life and I found you. Never will I forget you my darling. Mé grá tu. Shane." I fold the letter back up place it in the box. It still hurts like it did the moment I read it sitting in the airport after he had just left. Clutching his jacket and crying at the thought I might never see him again. Never see his smile or hear his laugh. That he would be on the other side of the world to me. He would be waking up as I would be going to sleep. Never would we be the same.

Something caught my eye and I put the letter down. It was an invitation my sisters engagement party. I had just turned twenty two and returned home for the first time in four years. Nothing had changed except for the way I looked and that my sister as finally marrying Nicky, her childhood sweetheart.

I walked through the front door which was wide open, like always. "I'm here" I yell and within seconds Mum and Georgina are hugging me. "Look at you" Mum is holding my face in her hands. "Your hair" Georgina is stunned by my hair which is now long, straight and brunette. "I know. Do you like it?" I ask her nervously if she doesn't I'll have to change it for the wedding. "I love it" she replies and I sigh with relief. I can hear voices coming from the lounge but for some reason I want to run from them. "You look tired Gillian, maybe you should go have a lie down first?" Sisters can read minds. Mum agrees and tells me its fine and come down when I'm ready. Opening the door to my room I feel as though I'm eighteen again. With no worries in the world. My room has not changed one single bit. I lie down on my bed and close my eyes.

Loud laughter wakes me up. Its dark outside and I'm suddenly cold. I take a deep breath in and sit up to open my suitcase. I open my door quietly knowing it squeaks. I sit on the stairwell not wanting to go any further. "Maybe you should go wake her up" I hear Mum say. "No let her sleep, she'll be tired" Georgina replies. "But Shane will have to go soon" The name takes me by surprise. Then I hear it. His voice "I'll go if you like" My heart starts pounding and I can't think. I think of getting up but its too late he is at the bottom on the stairwell already. He looks at me and stops. Our eyes transfixed on each other. He climbs the stairs and reaches me. I stand quietly and walk with him back to my room. He closes the door. "Hello" he says as I turn around to him. I can't think of anything to say. It's like the night we first met "What? You're not going to compliment me on this jacket?" I have to laugh but at the same time I want to cry. "No, I do like that jacket." I manage to get out. "You look good" He tells me. "Thank you, why are you here?" I have to know even if it was blunt. "I was over here for business; I couldn't come to New Plymouth without seeing if you were here. Your mother said you would be returning tonight so I waited." I had no idea what to say once again. "I've been here before now you know. A couple of times. But you've never come home before now." "Mum never told me that." I tell him. "I told her not to. If I wasn't meant to see you again that time then that's fate" I can't believe what I'm hearing. "I went to Ireland" I had to tell him. "I walked around Sligo for hours looking for you but I had no idea what to look for." He looks at me and smiles. His phone beeps and he looks at it. "That's my reminder for my flight, I have to go." "Where?" I ask "Back home, Goodnight my darling." He kisses me on the forehead and leaves. I lay on my bed staring at the roof feeling exactly like I did the day he left. I open up a draw and pull out something I hadn't seen in four years. The blue jacket. As I clutch onto it I feel eighteen and heartbroken again.

I put the invitation back in the box and looked up. "Hello Mummy" Nicole said to me and she walked over carefully. She had just found her feet. "Hello trouble" Her blonde curls flowed down around her face and her rosy red cheeks glowed. She picked the final thing up from the box but something had caught my eye that had just fallen on the floor. My plane tickets from New Plymouth to Sligo dated the 5th July 2001. The day after the engagement party. Nicole puts something on my knee. "Whose jacket is this?" she asks me. I look at her and reply "Its Daddy's."