Please correct my essay! It's due tomorrow!

Memories and Speck Counting

As night approached, the room turned from a soft white to a deep gray. A small desk littered with school supplies sat in the corner, facing a wide, flat bed. The walls were light beige, littered with movie posters and soccer pinups. All of the color of the room seemed to come from two red chairs, which were illuminated by the bright shine of a lamp. T-shirts and pairs of jeans were strewn carelessly across the floor, leaving small spaces for dark wood paneling to peek through.

A silence lay heavily in the air, amplifying the creak of mattress springs to a dull roar. One could literally hear a pin drop.

Through the midst of this silence, I lay awake, breathing softly as I stared at the ceiling.

“One hundred twenty-one, one hundred twenty-two, one hundred twenty-three…” I mouthed soundlessly as I counted each speck in the plaster. Every so often, a whisper would escape, and its sound would reverberate as it bounced from wall to wall. It was almost as if it were trying to free itself from the quietness in which it was imprisoned.

Then, suddenly, a loud voice broke through the silence.

“She’s my little whiskey girl, she’s my little whiskey girl,” sang Toby Keith as his recorded voice emerged from Christine’s alarm clock. His simple lyrics took me from my bed to a Volkswagen Jetta three months earlier.

My sister Christine and I are driving around in her car, listening to the radio. The final chords of a twanging guitar solo hang in the air as I stare out the window, watching the trees and road signs as they whiz by. A new song begins to play on the radio, wafting through the mesh covered speakers. My sister squeals as she recognizes the first few notes.

“Eee! Oh my God Nicole, I love this song!” she exclaims, unable to contain her obvious delight. One arm holds the steering wheel steady while she begins to wave the other in the air to the rhythm of the song. Her head moves gracefully from side to side in time with her arm, and her feet drum a steady beat. Then, she begins to sing along. “Whoa, she's my little whiskey girl, my ragged-on-the-edges girl… Ah, but I like 'em rough!”

“This can’t be happening..” I thought as I slowly slid down into my seat. Only the top of my hair became visible through the side window. People turned and stared as the loud country music escaped from the windows.

Her glee is contagious, and I can’t help but join in. First my foot begins to tap, clicking against the plastic interior. Then my fingers drum out the tempo of the song on the glove box. Finally, my arms begin to wave, mimicking the rhythmic motions my sister executes. Pretty soon, both of us are dancing and singing at the top of our lungs. The song ends soon thereafter, and I am left with a feeling of pure bliss. Without even realizing it, Christine has let me enjoy one of life’s little, random moments that make everything wonderful. We roll down our windows, and let the air sift through our fingers as another tune begins to play.

A shuffling of feet outside my room has brought me back from my reverie. A light is clicked on, and a bar of light instantly shines through a crack near the bottom of my door. The floor squeaks with approaching footsteps, and then my bedroom door is pushed open.

A rush of perfume swept through my room as the door is opened fully. The flowery, spicy scent lingered in clouds above my bed and desk. Even with my eyes closed, I would have been able to tell that my sister had arrived. I looked up and stifled a laugh. My sister’s usually smooth curls had metamorphosed during the night to produce a large chestnut-colored ball of frizz. A curl or two stuck up in several directions, and gave Christine the unfortunate appearance of a person who has just been electrocuted. Brown, sleepy eyes stared exhaustedly through small glasses with thick black frames, and a drooping smile revealed two rows of straight, white teeth. A gray t-shirt emblazoned with a slogan from Bubba Gump’s shrimp shop hung loosely above a pair of pink striped pajama bottoms.

“You’re awake?” my sister questioned incredulously, stifling a yawn. I glanced at the clock’s bright yellow digits, which read 3:15 AM, before answering.

“Yea, it was your alarm.” I lied, in an attempt to cover up my night of reminiscing and speck counting. “It woke me up. Thanks a lot.”

Christine laughed and threw a pillow at me. She was the only one who found humor in my sarcasm. Then, as the fluffy down feathers collided with my face, I began to laugh as well. The laughter turned into hysterics, and I had to lean an arm against the wall for support. The hysterics then broke off into heaving gasps for air. We collapsed onto my bed and said nothing as we caught our breath. It was in this moment that the thought finally sunk in—my sister was leaving for college. This moment was accompanied by a dull ache at the pit of my stomach. It was hard to imagine how things were going to change once Christine left for Cal State Fullerton.

“So I’m getting ready to leave,” she said woefully, and glanced over in my direction.

I couldn’t meet her gaze, and answered with a quick “Okay”. I didn’t know what to say. Any phrase I uttered would be useless in making her stay for one day longer. As I thought this over, a second realization struck me. Instead of trying to make her stay one day longer, I would be so kind and nice to Christine that she would look forward to her returns to home.

“I’m gonna miss you.” I spoke slowly, carefully, so as to get my point across.

“Me, too.” Christine said with a smile. She pulled herself upright from my bed, and turned to give me a hug. I reciprocated, and she got up and began walking towards the door. She walked out of the room and into the white walled bathroom across the hall. A faucet turned on, then off, and a hairbrush could be heard tugging through a mass of curls. Then, Christine walked downstairs to the garage, got in her car, and drove to southern California.

I lay back down on my bed, and clicked off the lamp. Instead of being plunged into darkness like before, the approaching sunrise kept my room bathed in a soft yellow glow. However, the walls were still beige, and littered with movie posters and soccer pinups. Two bright red chairs still sat near a small desk. The same t-shirts and pairs of jeans were strewn across the floor, and the same patches of wood panel peeked through the spaces in between. My head hit the pillow, and for the first time that night, I slept.