I'd Live For You, If Only I Could (Completed)

First

A/N
Because I'm so insanely impatient, I'm updating this now. I hope you enjoy it!

Mitch POV

*13 Years Old*

I knew something was wrong when I couldn't breathe. It was in the middle of our social studies lesson for the day, and I tried to take a breath. All that happened was worse suffocation. Being thirteen and unexperienced in the problems of life, I didn't handle it well. I opened my mouth to try to speak, but all that came out was an odd sounding croak. My teacher hushed me. But someone sitting next to me looked at me and noticed how pale I looked, or noticed that tears were welling in my eyes and I was drooping. I wrapped my hands around my throat seconds before I blacked out. That was only the first instance. In the time that I was unconscious, my lungs filled with fluid and I almost died. I was out for nearly two days, and my parents really thought that I would die. I vaguely remember hearing my mom crying while I couldn't open my eyes, and my dad telling her that maybe it was just my time and they had to let me go. But then I woke up, and the fluid had been drained from my lungs. I spent a while more in the hospital, and in that time, my parents found out that I had cancer. It had been determined that I probably wouldn't live much longer, maybe three months at the most. The conversation was happening outside my room, where I was supposed to be asleep, but I still heard the whole thing. What I remember most is my mom's sobs.

*14 years old*

I was sitting in the middle of my first day of eighth grade, running the tip of my pencil over a sheet of paper in an attempt to distract myself from the whispers flying around the room and the stares at me that went with them. We had just moved to Arlington, two months before, and I still didn't know anyone. Everyone saw me as the weird kid with the weird machine, and nobody had talked to me yet. Even at home, in my neighborhood full of kids my age, no one but my family talked to me. Several times, whatever teacher I had at the time would have to raise their voice to hush the students. There would be laughs and stares, and then I would be saved by the bell and leave. I think it was in sixth period, art, when someone finally sat down next to me. A tall blond guy with really blue eyes. At the time, I didn't know why I couldn't look away from him, but now I know. He sat there and didn't say anything, just stared down at his paper for a few minutes. My heart sunk, and I thought that he had just sat there because he had to. Then, without looking up, he said, "Ignore them."

"What?" I said, startled by his sudden talking.

"I said ignore them. Don't let anyone make you feel bad about yourself." I didn't respond. We just sat in a mutual silence for the rest of class, but in the rest of our classes together, he would sit next to me. Eventually, the whispers started to go away. I wondered who he was. On the second day, we had a whole conversation. I found out that his name was Scott, that he lived two neighborhoods over from me, and that he had been born and raised in Arlington. He must have seen that I didn't really know anybody, because after school that day, he invited me over to hang out with him at his friend's house. I had agreed gladly. His friend quickly became one of my best, and the three of us were nearly inseparable for the rest of the year.

*15 years old*

I walked into Martin High School on the first day with Scott on one side and Kirstie on the other. My oxygen tank was on my back since I hadn't wanted to drag it around that morning. All that I could think about was hope that nothing would go wrong with school or me. Kirstie seemed to be able to see the concern hiding in my face, probably not as subtly as I would have liked, and nudged me.

"It's gonna be fine. You and I have all the same classes, anyway, so if something happens, I'll be there." I turned and hug her tightly, smiling into her hair when she hugged me back. I turned toward Scott and did the same thing. His arms wrapped around me, engulfing my frame, tiny as opposed to his football player build, and felt a pang of something good in my chest. Something about the way he held me made me feel okay, like I would actually be fine. But then he stepped back and I saw a blush dusting his cheeks. Suddenly I wondered if he had felt the same thing.

*15 years old*

It was three months into the school year, a Wednesday, and I was sitting at lunch with Scott and Kirstie. It was the only day all three of us had lunch together, and looking back on it I am thankful that it was that day. At first, the discomfort in my chest didn't seem like anything. When I started coughing and tasted copper in my mouth, I tried to cover it by taking a few gulps of water. I started coughing harder and Scott noticed the blood.

"Mitch?"

"I'm fine." I lied, trying to cover it up. The coughing was still continuously getting worse and I could breathe less and less by the second. That was the second time I came close to death. But I woke up with tubes sticking out of me and machines hooked up to me everywhere, and I saw Scott sitting at the end of the bed watching me, and I knew I had to live. I had to live for him if I could.