13 Days

Chapter I. The Bucket List

*to be edited

   What would you do if you found out you had her 13 days left to live? I, for one, have decided to drown my sorrows in depressing fucking movies and fast food. Not the healthiest choice for someone as sick as me, someone as broken as me... as dead as me. I guess I should've made a bucket list or some shit once I found out I was diagnosed with this disease 2 years ago. 

Maybe then my best friend, Isabelle, would have a more sounding reason to drag me out of my room and into the real world instead of the same 5 words she's been exasperatedly repeating to me these past twenty-four hours. "You're dying in 13 days." She whispered into the air when the doctor uttered the news of my forthcoming death—more likely towards herself than to me, in all honesty. 

Just as the end credits of another sappy shitty movie had started to roll down the screen of my old MacBook, I heard a knock on the door. Isabelle walked in, and I couldn't help but feel the slightest bit of jealousy twinge inside my body as I saw her healthy, olive-toned skin shimmy past my doorway and her petite body sit on the edge of my bed. She gave me a nearly sinister smile as she inched closer to me, silently motioning for me to close my laptop. I rolled my eyes, "What?" I whispered, my voice coming out so hoarse that I barely even recognised my own self. She rolled her eyes back at me and made herself more comfortable on my bed. Silently, she pulled out a small piece of paper from the back pocket of her denim shorts, she slowly unfolded the messily torn piece of paper and handed it to me. I let a sigh slip out of my lips as I read through the twelve numbered items scattered on the page in Isabelle's signature messy handwriting. 

"Lany's 12 Day Bucket List"

Live in New York City.

Walk the runway in New York Fashion Week.

Perform slam poetry in a shitty dive bar.

Find love.

Find my real parents.

My eyes go wide, and grow impossibly wider as I read down the list. And I read, and read. Over and over again until a soft cough interrupts me. I look up to see Isabelle smiling softly as me, as if to say "So what do you think?" I let out a soft scoff as I place the piece of paper back down on my sheets. "I-Isabelle, you can't be serious? 12 days? And plus, a bucket list of 5 things, seems quite ambitious and frankly, quite sad." Isabelle looks at me, her hazel coloured eyes giving me a look I couldn't quite decipher. "Well? What was I supposed to do? Let my best friend literally die away in her room? No. Just... no, okay?" 

My lips quiver as the realisation quickly set in, I was dying. My hands shakily pull my body up to lift itself off my bed slightly. "Isabelle..." I start, "It's not that I want to die... it's just that it's going to happen Is, it's going to happen so fucking soon and I'd be the biggest liar in the world if I told you I wasn't scared out of my mind right now. What's going to happen to all the memories that we're going to make if I do all this? What's the point?" Isabelle looks up from her lap, tears burning the edges of her eyes and I all want to do is wipe them away and curse God out for making me such a mess. Such a dying, broken mess. 

To my surprise, Isabelle wipes them off herself and stands up, grabbing the list from off the bed. "Lany, I love you. You're my best friend, my sister, my everything—hell, sometimes you're even more of a mother than my own. Did you even notice how I made this damn bucket list? I know you, Lany, I know what you've always wanted to do in life, and what you've always been too scared to do. But guess what? There's no point now in being scared. In 12 days you're going to be gone, and wouldn't you want to leave this fucked up world with memories worth bringing down into your grave instead of memories of yourself watching the same 15 movies on repeat? But don't get me wrong, I'll love you either way... I'll sit here with you for 12 days straight watching those damn movies if it makes you happy... all I'm saying is there's always a better way to go."

My green eyes pierce into her watery hazel ones that poured down soft tears onto her cheeks. My lips shake as I let out a sigh and brush the hair from my face that was sticking due to all the tears on my cheeks. My first time crying since I found out the news and I didn't expect for it to go like this. For it to lead to me hesitantly agreeing to all the plans that Isabelle had made for my last 12 days. For me to pack up almost all my shit in 3 hours, go to the hospital to get all the clear—which was tough by the way when all my doctors seemed to be walking on glass when they talked to me, letting out shaky sighs as they allowed me to do what Isabelle wanted and wished me all the best, and for me to be on an Uber nearly 5 hours later with a boarding ticket in my hand and the sounds of our suitcases hitting the back of the truck.

After the Uber driver's lame attempt at making conversation, and our even lamer attempts at replying despite my own secondhand embarrassment for the poor guy when he said "What's the rush? You have the rest of your lives to do this?" which led to Isabelle roasting the guy and revealing my impending death which shut him up until we arrived in LAX. We finally made it. There we were, about to board a plane to New York City where a fully furnished apartment was waiting for us. Maybe even a runway, a shitty bar, a guy who's stupid enough to fall for a dying girl, and maybe even my real parents. And, that night as the plane made it's way into the clouds, I made myself a promise: to live as fucking well as I could, even if it would kill me.