My Reason to Live

Chapter 1

My seat belt is fastened. Window shutter is down.

I have a window seat. I hate window seats. Because I hate flying. No, actually, that's wrong. I don't hate flying. I'm afraid of flying. So, sitting by the window with the view of clouds and sky for the next six and a half hours, reminding me that I'm thirty thousand feet off the ground, is going to be torture for me—not that I don't deserve torture. I deserve everything I have coming to me. And in the grand scheme of things, flying on this plane really doesn't matter.

But in my defense—yes, I'm defending myself against myself—fear is not rational. It doesn't give you a choice. It just is. So, yeah, I'm afraid.

Still, I know what matters is the reason that I'm on the plane. I'm going to London—the place I have always wanted to go. I'm going to see where my mother was born and grew up, where my parents met and fell in love. And, while I'm there, I'm going to complete my list.

The list.

I pull the piece of paper titled 'Things to Do If I Live' from my bag. It's the list I wrote when I was seventeen years old, and I had a life-threatening brain tumor.

I have one of those again—a brain tumor, I mean. Well, I'm almost ninety-nine percent sure. The symptoms are here again—the severe headaches, vomiting, and fatigue. I just haven't actually gone to my doctor to have it confirmed. Because, if I do, Dr. Hart, my doctor, she will want me to have surgery and radiation therapy and take endless amounts of medication.

She'll want me to fight to live.

And I don't want that.

I just want to complete my list while on the trip I was supposed to take with my family before they died, and then...

I don't know what's at the end of that sentence. Actually, yes, I do know. Death is what's at the end of that sentence.

Death and relief. Relief, because I'll get to be with my family again.

I plug my headphones into my cell and put the buds in my ears. I select the Music app on the screen, find the song I want, and hit play.

The sound of Coldplay's "Paradise" starts to bleed into my ears.

This song was played at my family's funeral. I listen to it regularly, not to only torture myself—because I deserve to be tortured—but also to remind myself of what I did, what I stole from my family—their lives. It's not that I need the song to remember because what I did is always there. The knowledge that my mother, father, brother, and sister all died because of me is with me every single second of each day.

But what this song does remind me of is that I will get to see my family again, and when I do see them, I'll be able to tell them how very sorry I am. I'll be able to beg them for their forgiveness.

I'll be with them again. Hear their voices and the sounds of their laughter, touch them...hold them.

It's all I want.

And, now, thanks to the tumor growing in my head, that day will be sooner rather than later.

I'm going to die. And it's a relief.

Maybe I should rename my list to 'Things to Do Before I Die'.

Grabbing a pen from my bag, I pull the Thirlwall Airways brochure from the storage pocket on the seat in front of me. I put my foot up on the back of the seat and rest the brochure on my thigh. Then, I sit the paper against the brochure. I correct the title at the top of my list.

'Things to do  ̶i̶f̶ ̶I̶ ̶L̶i̶v̶e̶  Before I Die'

There. That looks better. More appropriate.