The Bucket List

short film

A couple hours later and everyone is done getting their tattoos. Everyone is actually really happy with them and I'm glad I was able to get them with all of my friends.

It didn't actually hurt as much as I thought it would, but, to be fair, I have experienced a lot of pain.

I've been driving everyone home and the only person left is Nolan, who lives just down the road.

"Morgan?" He asks.

"Yeah?"

"Can I ask you something that might be a sensitive topic?" I already know that his question is going to be about my illness, and honestly, I don't even care anymore. I don't even have a problem talking about it now that everyone knows. I pass his house, and he notices, and just shrugs it off. I figured we would have to discuss this over a cup of coffee.

"Sure."

"Is it hard?"

"Is what hard?"

"Living."

"No." I lie, forcing myself not to shudder at the meltdown I literally had this morning.

"Not at all?"

"Well, sometimes it's hard but it's okay. I'm okay."

"I want to know more."

"More about what?"

"About what happened."

"You need to be more specific than that. A lot has happened." I say, pulling into the parking lot and heading inside. I buy us both coffee and we sit down at the table together.

"Tell me how it started."

"Well, this is going to be a long story."

"This place closes at nine. You have six hours."

"Perfect." I say. "Well, get comfortable."

"I am."

"Great. So, on the morning of September Twenty-Third, I got a cough, and it was honestly nothing. My throat didn't hurt, I wasn't stuffed up, it was just a cough, and so I didn't think much of it at the time, until two weeks past and it hadn't gone away. I had obviously been sick before and it had never lasted longer than two weeks. It seemed a little weird, but still, I pushed it away and told myself it was noting. Skip to a month after that, when I really started to question it, because it hadn't gotten better, in fact, it has gotten much worse. I thought of all the possible combinations, but only the mild ones, like asthma or whatever. I told my brother but he told me that I was fine, that it would go away eventually.

"Skip ahead again to a month after that day. November tenth, which was the first day I had coughed up blood. It was only a couple drops and I was convinced that I was okay, because that's what my brother had told me. I was so in denial that I wasn't even paying attention to the warning signs of a possibly deadly disease. November twenty-ninth was when I woke up at three a.m. with the realization that I needed help. I didn't sleep for the rest of that night because I was afraid that if I fell asleep I would choke on my own blood and die. I told Liam that I really needed help so he took me to the doctor and almost instantly I was taken in and it was in that moment that I realized how severe this could have really been.

"The person I saw was a student in training who was in charge of asking questions and assisting the doctor. He decided that it was pretty serious, so I got to skip ahead of all the other patients. The first thing I got was an x-ray, but obviously, it was unsuccessful, so rather that being a serious rib problem, they decided that it was a serious lung problem. I got cat scans and MRI scans and then after calling in countless doctors to find the results, they finally found about sixty little tumours growing on the sides of my lungs. Sixty.

"I asked them what I needed to do to get rid of them and they sat me in a room. There was a box of tissues on the table in front of me and so I already knew that it was going to be sad. Liam was there with me and after a while, the doctor finally came in with a weird, disturbed look on his face. He told me that he had never had to tell anyone what he was about to tell me, but he didn't really ease me into it, he looked me dead in the eyes and said 'you have one year to live.'

"I couldn't believe what I was hearing. It was almost as if someone had just stabbed me in the stomach and I wasn't able to move or communicate. I just sat there in shock as Liam got up and stormed out of the room, and the last thing I remember before crying uncontrollably was him slamming the door behind him.

"The road to recovery was long, and it wasn't for almost three months that I decided to tell people. It took me a really long time for my brother and I to accept it, especially because we had just lost our parents to a drunk driver the previous year. Since then, I have had many ups and downs and when someone I know gave me the idea to make a bucket list, that's when everything changed. I met a lot of new people and now I'm really happy with who I am, and honestly, if it weren't for this stupid disease I would have never gotten the chance to fall in love with my boyfriend or meet any of you guys, and so, even though I only have a year, it's been the best year of my life, and I wouldn't have it any other way." I look up at Nolan, honestly forgetting that he was there.

"Can I be honest with you?" He says, and I nod, "I am amazed by how positive you are about this whole thing."

"I've heard that before, but I've just come to accept it."

"That's awesome." He says. "And one more thing... I don't know how else to tell you this but I just recorded that whole thing because I want to turn it into a short film."

"You what?" I ask, and stare at him for a second before starting to laugh. "Why?"

"Morgan, your story is-is novel worthy! Okay?"

"I have an even better idea." I say, turning to look at him.

"You can turn this into a short film on your own time, but I would really like your help for something that I want to do for all of our friends. He smiles at me and I can't help but smile back.

"Whatever it is, I'm in."