The Bucket List

her anniversary

~One and a Half Months Later~

"Hello?" Kevin says, as he answers the phone. The voice is loud enough on the other side that I can hear the whole conversation.

"Where are you?" It's his mom.

"I'm just with Morgan, why? What's wrong?"

"You decided to spend this day with Morgan? And on the ten year mark too. I can't believe this."

"What do you mean?"

"Kevin," she says, sadly, "it's your sister's anniversary." The confused expression goes from confused to emotionless in an instant. I can't even comprehend what he's feeling.

"Mom... I'm so sorry... I'll be home in a couple minutes. I'm sorry." He says, and hangs up the phone. "I have to go."

"I know." I say. "I heard."

"I'm so sorry."

"Kevin, it's not me you should be apologizing to."

"I know."

"You should go." I say, and he stands up from the couch where we were sitting, watching movies. At least it's only ten thirty in the morning and not late in the evening.

"Okay." He says, and I stand up to walk him out.

"I'll see you soon, okay?" He says, and I hug him tightly.

"Okay. I love you." I say, because we haven't said it in a while.

"I love you too." He takes my face in both hands and kisses me, and suddenly I can feel all the emotion in his touch. I kiss him back but don't let it linger on. He needs to leave.

"Go be with your family." I say, and then I walk upstairs so that he has no choice but to leave. I can't believe he forgot the anniversary of his sister's death.

I sit on the couch and think about Annabelle. 

I never got the chance to meet her, though I wish I had. The way Kevin talks about her just warms my heart and brings me so much joy. He says that we remembers everything about her so vividly. She had dark brown hair like him, but with the most piercing green eyes that didn't match his brown ones. Her cheeks and nose were covered with the most adorable little freckles and she had really long eyelashes, especially for a little three year old girl. Her favourite colour was yellow because it was the colour of the sun. Her favourite shape was a heart because she loved her family very much. She liked to look at the stars but she didn't get to see them very much because she spent a lot of her time in bed or at the hospital. Her favourite food was pickles but she wasn't allowed to eat them because her stomach was so sensitive that the acidity could burn it. She ate a majority of her food through feeding tubes because sometimes she couldn't digest foods properly. 

There was one point in her life when they thought the fight was over. When she was born, she had an underdeveloped stomach and severe asthma, and there was one point when her stomach started to develop at a quicker pace, and they thought that if I keep developing at that rate, she would be okay. 

It was like running a marathon. If you could pass the finish, you were fine. Annabelle had been running for a long time, and right when they thought she was about to cross the finish line, at the twenty-fourth mile or so, she fell. 

She fell right before the end of the race. She tripped over her own feet and when she tried to save herself from the fall, she broke her arm, right on the twenty-fourth mile of that marathon. 

That's when she hit the all time low. Her asthma started acting up again. Her stomach's development rate started to slow down again. Everything just... stopped.