One day we were playing in the sea, when Jess got caught in a rip current. She couldn’t swim very well, she just flailed about helplessly. As the current pulled her further out to sea, I stood in the shallow water, frozen to the spot. The lifeguards reached her just as her blonde head sank beneath the waves. They pulled her out of the water, she was conscious but had inhaled a lot of water. They had her taken to the nearest hospital.
I visited her in hospital that evening. She looked absolutely fine, I didn’t understand why she was in hospital. The doctor explained that they needed to observe Jess, in case she was affected by secondary drowning. He reassured me that she would be fine, it was just a precaution.
The next day I got a call from Jess’s mum, telling me that my beautiful, laughing friend Jess had died. I felt numb. I couldn’t even cry, I just staggered downstairs to my mum.
Even now I can’t really believe she is gone. It’s like she got off the bus too early. All I can do is think of the happy times we shared together. In my head, Jess is smiling and shaking her golden curls in the sunshine. That’s how I will always remember her.
We would comfort each other when we were down, when we were ill we would make sure everyone in the class would send a get well card, we were first to sign the plaster when bones were broken,
Then one day Jess wasn’t at school. I was confused, she hadn’t said that she wouldn’t be in. I felt like she had betrayed me, or like she didn’t want to be my friend any more. When I got home my mum told me Jess had been taken into hospital after having bad chest pains. I visited her in hospital that evening, when I saw her in
When I got home my mum told me Jess had been taken into hospital after feeling faint and dizzy, and eventually becoming unconscious. Jess was diabetic and I wondered if it had anything to do with her collapsing.
It did. Jess was suffering from hypoglycaemia, low blood sugar. I visited her in hospital that evening, when I saw her in her bed I had one of the biggest shocks I’d had. Jess just lay there sleeping. She was so pale and weak. I wondered if she would get better. The doctors reassured me that she would be ok
