The Wish List

Prologue

  Some people get to live their lives to the fullest. Some don't get to live at all.

I had spent twelve years being asked what it was like having a sister with Leukemia.

Having a sister with cancer was being stirred awake in the middle of the night to find your frail, little sister bent over the toilet coughing up everything she'd attempted to eat that day. Having a sister with cancer was laying awake every hour of the night in fear that when you woke up you'd find her still, cold body under her blanket.

Having a sister with cancer was knowing that the inevitable was destined to happen and there was absolutely nothing in the world you could do to help. All you could do was stand at their bedside an watch as their breathing grew staggered until it faded away all together. Watch as nurses rush in and unplug everything as if it's a montage before you and not reality.

I had no desire to stand in a cemetery on the Saturday after her twelfth birthday to watch as they lowered my sister six feet underground.

Despite the heavy tension and darkness that hung over the attendees, the weather was beautiful. The sky's baby blue was splattered with white clouds and birds singing as they moved from one tree to another, oblivious to the tragic setting below them.

"I tried, Jack!" My mom's whisper-yell as she and my father bickered back and forth, completely drowning out the priest, earned a dark look out of me.

"I don't give a damn if you think-"

"Stop it!" I exploded, lifting my head hesitantly to find everyone, including Father Richard, had turned their full attention to the three people disrupting my sister's service, two of which had no desire to be here in the first place.

"Both of you, just stop." I snapped. "You're daughter is dead and you decide her funeral is the best place to hash out your pathetic issues? Just shut your God damn mouths for five seconds!"

My parents sunk into their seats, looks of embarrassment clear as day on their faces. A few people around us started to turn back around, whispering between each other.

"As we all sit here today, mourning the death of our beloved Stephanie Morrison, a soul that was much too young to-" I could feel my mind starting to drift off as Father Richard continued. I had heard the exact same speech last Sunday. When I had been called out of my class and had the news of her rapidly declining health thrown in my face.

My sister's death wasn't exactly unexpected, but it wasn't really expected either. She had been the face of newspapers, in the commercials for the cancer treatment center she had been at. She was an inspiration, proof that miracles did exist.

At least she had been.

They had promised us for the last year and a half that she was making progress and would be heading for a great recovery, that she could possibly leave and start living the life of a normal preteen. But it never happened, and somehow deep down, I knew it wouldn't.

Steph had been my everything. She had been my sister, my best friend, my shoulder and support, she had been my little angel.

She was the one that was there for me when Mom and Dad split up during her Chemo. She had been the one that wiped my tears and told me it was okay when Jason left to go live with his wife and son across the country. It had always been Steph that was there for me, for everyone, yet no one could ever stand to be there for her.

Sure, I had been at her bedside almost every day, I had laid on the hard ground or laid in the uncomfortable little guest bed they had in her room, and told her all kinds of stories about magical fairies and warrior princesses that didn't need a prince to save them. She had thought they were all fantasy, she didn't understand the layers of truth I had laced through them.

But the most fantastical story had that left my mouth had been the one I had told myself.

I had forced myself to believe that my sister was going to be okay. That the cancer would just magically vanish and she'd be able to get to live a normal life. She'd be able to come to my high school graduation and not watch it on Dad's cheap camcorder. That she could see Jason kiss his beautiful bride and hold his little boy for the first time.

I had wrapped my mind around the idea of my baby sister's happiness, just to have it torn away from me and buried in the ground to rot away.

She never got to see my graduation, she had been hunched over throwing up while I walked across the stage to get my diploma. She never got a chance to toss flowers on the ground and watch as Macy walked down the isle to meet our older brother, who had been on the verge of tears. She had been locked in the hospital room, forced to watch another rerun of some kid show she had grown out of.

"Ally." I looked up at the choked, strained voice. My brother stood a few feet away, his son in his arms with his face buried against his neck.

"Jace." I responded softly. Macy took their son from my brothers arms and whispered something in his ear before giving me a quick, tight side hug, then starting back up the hill to the line of cars starting to pull out.

"Ally." Jason repeated, reaching for me again, his green eyes almost unrecognizable.

"Don't touch me." I snapped, wrapping my arms around myself. He sat down in the vacant seat beside me and laid his head against my shoulder.

"It's my fault." I breathed out after a few minutes of staring at the smiling picture of my little sister propped up on a stand a few feet in front of us.

"Ally, it's not-"

"I could have been there. I should have been there sooner. I promised her I'd be there if it ever happened and I let her down." I could feel a lump starting to form in the back of my throat as Jason reached over and ran his thumb along my cheek.

"We couldn't have done anything, sis. God had a plan for her, he knew what-"

"No. Stop it with that crap! God didn't have a plan for anyone!" I cried, "If He cared, He wouldn't have taken her." My brother brought his hands to his forehead and buried his face in them, his hand trembling a little.

"God doesn't exist, Jason. If he did, he wouldn't have taken our baby sister from us." Jason stood up before crouching down in front of me, taking my hands in his.

Staring at the shell of him now, at the brother that all of my friends had once fallen in love with, I could feel my heart start to break a little more.

His eyes had permanent dark,bags under his eyes, his eyes dilated and lifeless. His once clean shaven face had light stubble on it, looking as if he had just given up shaving altogether.

"Don't blame God, Alyssa. It's not His fault that this happened. Something out there wanted Steph as an angel, and they finally took her to be one." I wanted to slap him, to tell him to look at the nearly empty cemetery around us. Tell him that our sister never even had a chance to live and she never would.

"I wish it would have been me, I c-"

"Stop it." He snarled, "Everyone knew that the day would come eventually, Alyssa! And you know just as well as I do that Steph wouldn't want you sitting here and crying, feeling bad about yourself and all of the things you could have done." I did the only thing I found logically possible in that moment.

I hugged my older brother for the first time in over four years.

He didn't hesitate to hug me tighter against his chest, his face buried in my jacket as he whispered how much Steph loved me and how great of a person I am.

I lifted my head from his shoulder, my eyes darting toward the hooded figure kneeling in front of my sister's headstone, their head bowed as if they were praying. I watched in silence, clinging to my brother as the person lifted their head and revealed nothing more than striking blue eyes. I had just enough time to pull away from Jason before the person disappeared behind the rows of cars that littered the street and out of sight. Leaving absolutely no sign of who they was, and why the hell they had shown up at my sister's funeral.

***AN***

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~ChasingMadness24