Collarbones || J.W.H.

Prologue

January 22nd, 2005

Snow had always amazed Camila. The way that each flake was so diverse in size in shape. It was quite like people she had thought. All beautiful is their own unique way. As her eyes focused on a particularly tattered looking flake she thought that must be how she looked. Fragile and so ready to melt away from this world. Just teetering on the edge of existing.

She wasn't used to snow, had only seen it a couple of times in her entire life. You didn't get much snow in Orlando. None to be exact. But her world was going to be different now. Everything in her life had been uprooted because her body couldn't do the most simple thing in the world; live. The majority of the world's population had so much life to live, years to make mistakes and find their purpose, to find their happiness. She didn't get that privilege, however, not since she got sick.

So there she was, in the back seat of her mother's mini van staring at snow falling on her window for the past ten minutes. It had been just the year prior Camila had found that her body was failing her. Leukemia. A disease she had known little about before all of this. So many doctors, so many tests. She often wondered if this was all worth it. Moving their entire lives across the country for her health, when she most likely would never recover. Cancer was expensive and the odds of her survival weren't looking too good. She practically had one foot in the grave as it was. What was the point of dragging on another year of her life if it meant piling on medical debt?

She knew her parents would never see it this way, so she had always kept those thoughts to herself. In reality, she had come to term with dying not long after being diagnosed. It was too mentally exhausting dreading the inevitable.

Of course she had to put on a brave face for her mother and father. Dying was simple for the dead, you take your last breath and you're done, you're free. The real tragedy was with the people who were left to mourn the dead. To have someone you love so dearly be ripped away before your eyes, the pain was unimaginable.

So she endured the treatments, the testing, although she knew in the end, it wouldn't work. She would get another year at best. Most likely less. She had low expectations for her life now. She knew, as much as it hurt her to her core, she would never get to go to college, get drunk, get married. Her whole dream of a life had dissolved with her diagnosis.

Her parents seemed to think otherwise, hence the move. They had heard of a doctor in a small town in Washington. They had hoped that he could help. Naive wishes, but Camila wasn't about to take that away from them, no mater how much it hurt to see them waste so much money on her deteriorating health.

She could see it, her body starting to wither away. Her once curvy stature had began to whither away to skin and bone.  Her eyes, once bright and joyful had turned dull, filled with pain. In fact everything had turned dull, her eyes, her skin, hell, her life. She had a future before everything, and now she had nothing but a ticking clock on her life. Her bones constantly aches and she was always covered in bruises, sometimes it even hurt to breath.

A small sign blurred by her window, welcoming the small family to the town. Finally, signs of civilization were starting to appear as the drive further into town. They had been driving along empty road for what seemed like years, so she was relieved to see some life finally.

The van slowed to a stop in front of a house suddenly. The house was a small homey looking thing, painted a dull yellow. Ugly, but still cute in a weird way? They had to size down from their house previously, having so many medical bills to pay off. Luckily, they weren't a huge family. Just her mother and father besides herself.

Her parents had wanted more kids, having Camila at a young age, but after years of trying, they were met with no success. Who knows, maybe they would try more after Camila died. A second chance at being parents. She hoped they would, they were good parents. The best she could have ever asked for. She was truly lucky to have them.