Guardian Angel (A Sample)

He found Taylor sitting on a low wall. Derry is the only remaining completely intact walled city in Ireland and one of the finest examples of a walled city in Europe. The walls are completely intact and form a walkway around the inner city.

He stood there staring at her for a moment. She sat with her back against the wall. The sun shone down on her, making her hair shine. Her knees were pulled up to her chest and her book was propped up against her legs. She was engrossed in her story and did not notice the gentle breeze playing with her hair.

He pulled his ring from his finger and when she perceived a movement in front of her, she looked up. He stepped toward her and then sat down next to her.

When his arm brushed against hers, she squirmed away awkwardly, without making it obvious. Although he stopped her from walking in front of the bread delivery truck earlier, she did not expect him to actually come looking for her.

He asked softly. "I recognized your bracelet. It's a Cancer awareness bracelet, isn't it?"

She glanced down at the plastic armband around her wrist. She did not know what to say.

He looked out across the wall to view the layout of the original town which still preserved its Renaissance style street plan.

She started to stand up. "I better get home."

He wanted to put his hand on her forearm to stop her from going, but he did not. "Please don't go because of me. How did you find out you were sick?"

He was being very forward. Usually, people tended to shy away from the subject of cancer. She looked back at him bothered.

He smiled friendly. He did not look like a kidnapper or a serial killer, and he did save her life, so she sat back down again. She had not spoken to another person, besides her mother and Dr. Dunne, for what seemed like forever. Maybe she could sit here for a while and talk with him, just to get her mind off Monday. As soon as she told him every detail, he would definitely leave her alone. People always did.

She sighed softly, letting the air blow over her bottom lip. She took a deep breath. "My first sign that something was not quite right was a constant pain in my back and neck. No matter how many pain pills I drank, the pain never really went away. The pain started when I was fifteen, and we thought it was stress or something silly like that. Also, I always felt tired. I would go to school, come home and sleep until dinner, do some homework and then go back to bed. Then, I noticed my vision do weird things. The images would flicker when I looked too far to the left or the right." She laughed softly. "It was very weird and scary all at the same time. One morning I woke up and the entire left side of my body was numb, with a funny sort of needles and pins kind of feeling. Every time I went to the doctor, they couldn't find anything wrong. First they thought it was my blood pressure, then anaemia, bell's palsy, and the list goes on and on. At one stage, they even thought it could be MS. Eventually, when my doctor ran out of ideas of why I had the constant pain, dizziness, numbness and being too tired to even go to school, he sent me to a neurologist. I went for my first MRI and was diagnosed." Embarrassed she looked at him. "Does that satisfy your morbid curiosity?"