A Dying Girl's List

Chapter 16

The next morning, Lissa's phone vibrated, indicating a receiving call.

She felt around on the table for it and once she had the rectangular piece of plastic in her hands, she forced her eyes open to press 'accept' and limply held it to her ear.

"Good morning," the caller greeted.

Lissa hoisted herself up and rubbed the sleep from her eyes with her free hand, after she put the List on the table.

Why would anyone call me so early in the morning on a frieking Saturday? She thought.

"Hey..." she moved the phone away from her ear to see who was calling, "Jace," she said and yawned.

"Did I wake you?" he asked.

"No, no, it's okay, what's up?" if it was anyone else that messed up her sleep, like those telemarketers, she probably would have said yes and hung up, but it was Jace, and he was okay.

He kept her up for countless nights in the past, by rudely invading her dreams, whenever she had a dream, instead of the occasional nightmares, so him – real him – interrupting her sleep was nothing that hasn't happened before, so...

"Well, I wanted to know what time I could over today?" he asked.

Lissa could see the nervous smile on his face and felt a smile creeping up on her own. That was one of those times where old feelings started to resurface. The giddy smiles they both had whenever they heard each other's voices in the morning or at night were an occasional occurrence while they were dating.

'Usually you just show up at my front door... So what makes today so special that you gotta ask?" she quizzed, now a bit more awake, throwing her head back over the arm of the couch.

"I-I...don't know actually," he stammered.

"Jace, I'm just messing with you. You can stop by at like noon," she answered, sitting up straight to look at the large, black-framed, square-shaped clock on the wall that had the long arm on the twelve and the short one on the ten.

"Okay, I'll be there. See you," he answered, then hung up.

Jace was so much more excited to see Lissa that day, than all the other months he had seen her, combined. He had no idea why... Another example of old feelings that resurfaced.

Lissa put the phone back down on the table and slowly walked upstairs to her bedroom.
She took out an outfit for the day and laid it out neatly on her bed. She walked to her bathroom and stepped into the shower.

She turned off the water, twenty minutes later, and wrapped a towel around her body. She stood in front of the mirror, scowled at her reflection, then took out her toothpaste and toothbrush from the cupboard beside it, and brushed her teeth.

She took another towel out from the cabinet beneath the basin and dried her wet locks. Then went back into her bedroom and dressed in the clothes she had picked out: a black cold-shoulder crop-top and a white skater skirt.

Lissa then blow-dried her hair, left it loose, then put on her 'babygirl' necklace, grabbed her backpack from a hook behind the closet door, and a pair of black flats from the shoe-shelf at the bottom right corner of her closet, and headed downstairs.

By the time she reached the living room, it was already 11:30, so she grabbed the List and her phone from the table, and placed both in the front pocket of her backpack, then hung the backpack on the hook behind the front door, and her shoes below the shelf that kept the keys in place, beside it, and sauntered into the kitchen to grab herself granola bar.