33 Days To Live (Under Revision)

59

Eight days, one hundred ninety-two hours, eleven thousand five hundred twenty minutes, six hundred ninety one thousand two hundred seconds since Lucy's suicide attempt.

Eight days may not seem like much to the next person but to me it was a life time. A life time of regret, a life time of wishing, a life time of anger, a life time of sadness; just a life time.

Today though, today wasn't like the other seven days because today was the thirty third day since I had first set out upon my mission to save Lucy Burke. Since that morning I approached her at her locker with a cheesy pick up line thirty-three days had passed, meaning today was the date. If everything had gone how she planned, today would've been the day this hell started, not eight days ago.

Knowing that little fact made me die inside all over again. I had died inside so many times the past couple of weeks I was surprised I hadn't died for real. I felt like I was and in a sick way, I kind of wanted to. Anything to end the terrible pain and regret I was living with.

Until things took a turn for the worst or for better I had officially moved up into Luke's room and sat on the bed with him watching TV. Everyone else had gone home this afternoon to shower and take a nap but home was the last place I wanted to be. I didn't want my parents or Rachel fussing over me, I wanted them to be able to continue their daily lives even though I couldn't continue mine.

I don't think I was ever going to be able to.

"Want the rest of this jello? I'm full," Luke said as he shoved the plastic cup of gooey red towards me but I pushed it away.

''I'm not hungry." I mumbled.

"Aww c'mon Ben, you love jello and I'd really hate for it to go to waste." He insisted, shoving it back towards me. I just decided to ignore him.

"Ben please eat it, I'm getting worried. You look sickly and like you've lost weight, just eat it please." He begged and I sighed heavily as I looked over at him.

"I'm not hungry Luke. The girl I love is upstairs dying, how can I eat?" I asked dryly.

"Lucy would want you to eat, she would want you to be strong. Look Ben, take it from someone who went through loss before, the way your going about things is really unhealthy and as your best friend I demand that you eat the jello," He said firmly as he grabbed my hand and forced the jello into it. "If you don't I'm going to call my nurse and I'm going to tell her to tell the doctor your not eating and they'll force feed you with test tubes." He warned, making me almost smile.

"Your evil," I said as I grabbed the spoon from him and weakly took a bite.

"No, I'm your best friend." He then sighed heavily. "This isn't your fault you know. I don't want you to blame yourself for this if...if it does take a turn for the worst...I want you to be able to live with the fact that you tried your hardest to save her life and it just wasn't meant to be," he said softly, making my heart ache.

"Look Luke, I know you mean well but I really don't want to hear this right now," I said between a mouthful of jello. In two bites I had eaten the whole thing and realized how hungry I was.

"That's to bad, you need to hear it and your going to thank me for being brave enough to say it. Don't blame yourself Ben, you didn't do anything wrong. In fact, I think you did everything right. It was the people around you who screwed everything up. I don't want to watch you, a happy fun guy, become a pile of miserable goo. I can't bear that Ben, your like my brother and when I get out of this hospital I want to enjoy life with you again, even if it may be a little sad to continue on with it." He then sighed heavily and looked up at the ceiling.