Paperboy | Fillie

t h i r t y - o n e

Sadie was on her way.

I sat at the table with Millie, not being able to open the folded piece of paper that had my name so neatly scrawled across it. I hadn't said a word since I got off the phone with Sadie, what was I supposed to say? I knew Millie was worried but I couldn't find it in myself to comfort her.

It was only about ten minutes until Sadie showed up, and she came in with a face full of worry.

"Finn why did you leave my house? Millie? What's going on?"

Her eyes trailed to the box that was sitting in front of me, all of the items still spread out around it. I held up the papers with our names on them and she looked at them with confusion.

"They were in the camera."

My words were almost whispered and Sadie stepped forward quickly, snatching hers out of my hand.

"If this is a joke-"

"Why would I joke about this Sades?"

She sighed.

"What do they say?"

I shook my head.

"I haven't read them. I wanted to wait for you."

She nodded and locked eyes with me.

"What if they tell us why..."

"Then we know why."

She nodded again and sat down at the table.

"Let's read them then."

She began unfolding hers as I did the same, a page full of Iris' tiny cursive handwriting unraveling in front of me. I looked up at Sadie who nodded, the both of us starting to read.

Finn,

I don't know when you'll find this but hopefully it's soon. Knowing you, you won't even know it's in my camera for a while. That's okay though. I know you're probably wondering, why put it in the camera? Why not leave it in the open with the other things that were left for you and Sadie? Well, I didn't want anyone else to know my reasoning. I'm going out on a limb here in hopes that you'll actually find this. It's between the three of us, you me and Sadie. Us against the world remember?

I stopped reading, glancing up at Millie. She gave me a small sad smile. I looked back down and sighed. It wasn't us against the world anymore. It hadn't been since she left.

I want to start my explanation by saying that this was in no way yours, Sadie's, or anyone else's fault besides my own. I decided to take my life and you guys couldn't have done anything to stop it.

I clenched my jaw at this. We could have stopped it, if she just would have told us her reasoning we could have stopped it. We could have at least tried.

Here it goes, what I've been keeping from you. About two weeks ago I was diagnosed with Pancreatic Cancer. It's not something that's too common in people our age, let alone common in general. The doctor said it couldn't have been caught earlier because there really are no early symptoms. I was given about three and a half months to live, and if I went through with getting chemotherapy then I had about eight months.

I sucked in a breath and my eyes started to water. Why didn't she tell us? She told us everything but decided to keep this?

The prices for treatment were going to be high...way too much for my parents to be able to pay. We were already having money problems, something else I have been keeping a secret. They had talked about moving a couple times, but decided it's best to stay here while I went through treatments. The odds of me surviving still would have been very low, so I didn't see why my parents would go through all that for nothing.