11 Days With Keira Rudd

EPILOGUE

EPILOGUE

[15 Months later]

"Hey Riley are you going to join us in the cafeteria again?", a cute girl called Katherine asks and I nod with a smile present on my face. Her straight, black hair is done in a high ponytail and her chestnut brown eyes are watching me fondly.

"Of course! I won't let my girls down", my deep voice sincere and she giggles lightly before she waves her goodbye, aiming for the next period. A frustrated sigh leaves my lips while my hand runs through my black, tousled hair. My hair grew quite wild since I've left High-school and started attending college nine months ago. My appearance changed a lot since the day I had suffered from the first and only heartbreak I have ever experienced.

It has been fifteen months, also known as one year and three months or one could even call it one and a quarter year since Keira Rudd disappeared out of my life. My whole life changed the second she had promised me to wait for her. Her words kept my hopes up, but I was soon confronted with the awful truth. The truth that she stopped texting me after two months. 

Her last text message arrived on my seventeenth birthday which was more than one year ago: "Make sure to become the most beautiful butterfly the world has ever seen – x."

"Tsk, that stupid woman. How am I supposed to become the most beautiful butterfly when she's the one stealing this title anyway?", I mumble, shaking my head from one side to the other, before two girls approach me with two tiny packages in their small hands. More chocolates. I've received a hell lot of chocolates since I became a college student. 

Apparently, girls have started to like me for some unknown reason. Blame my new appearance and my new, extroverted attitude for this drastic turn in my life. My hair grew wild, I grew in size, gained a few muscles and I finally replaced my thick, black glasses with contacts. Some girls from my High-school told me that my face became quite masculine and structured. Moreover, my style has ostensibly changed too. Wearing plain jeans which I combine with one-colored shirts and hoodies.

Changing myself was my only way dealing with the broken heart Keira left behind when she didn't keep her promise. I've followed the list which repeated itself in my mind over and over again. 

"Change your appearance, chance yourself, spend time with friends, acceptance and moving on."

The hardest part is the last one which I'm still struggling with since I don't know why she stopped contacting me. She said that she wouldn't stop fighting, but maybe it all ended when she wasn't able to fight anymore.

There is a 17% high chance for girls in the age between 16 and 18 that cancer returns. Why did those 17% apply to Keira of all people?

Chances of surviving cancer are high for patients under the age of forty, but no one ever knows what might happen. It could have always been possible that she belonged to one of the minor percentages. Regardless of all the research I made, I couldn't figure out how high her chances really were since I never knew what kind of cancer she suffered from.

"No, I won't believe that anything happened until her parents contact me and convince me otherwise. Damn! Why am I still thinking about her anyways?", I mutter quietly before I feel a hand on my shoulder, gently pulling on my wine-red colored hoodie. Startling me for an instant.

"What are you spacing out about?", two pine-green eyes stare at me cautiously. Jake White grew up becoming one fine man himself. His red shimmering, curly hair tied back into a loose ponytail and he smiles at me with his white teeth surrounded by his very masculine, stubbly face. He grew not only in length, but also obtained quite the impressive manly physique since he started with professional swimming.