Finding You (UNDER THE PROCESS OF EDITING)

Prologue

"We don't remember days,
We remember moments"
- Cesare Pavese

~*~

- Chloë -

If I had known that this Christmas was going to be one of the very last ones I would ever get to spend with my loved ones, then I'm pretty sure I would've done my best to make it memorable.

But Death never comes knocking on anyone's door and asks them, "Is it the right time to take you away?"

~*~

I woke up on a cozy Christmas morning to be greeted by someone's disgusting coffee-breath hitting my face, along with said person elbowing me in the gut.

"Do you wanna build a snowman? Or be an idiot and sleep all day?" Ruby sang loudly in my ear.

Ladies and gentlemen, the morning person award goes to none other than...

*drumrolls*

MY LOVELY SISTER!!

My eyes widened when I rolled to the side and looked at the time on the alarm on my nightstand.

"Shut up. It's five thirty in the morning. What would we do at the ass-crack of dawn?" I groaned.

"Build a snowman, didn't you just hear me?"

She was holding a steaming cup of coffee in her hands, which I could (unfortunately) smell from my bed. How could she love something which tasted so disgusting? I would never know.

She was wearing her plain black hoodie over an olive-green tank top and dark-washed skinny jeans since she was a polar bear - the cold didn't bother her. Her dark brown hair was tied back in a bun, and her stormy grey eyes were glinting with excitement even in the dim light.

Most of the girls in her class were moody and unpredictable, but something was different about Ruby. She was happy anywhere, and hardly ever complained about anything. Like I said, a morning person.

She had worked very hard for her exams and had scored extremely well and applied for a medical course at Stanford, Harvard and NYU to study medical oncology, as it was her dream to treat cancer and be a life saver. I would be extremely proud to be there at her graduation ceremony, to see my elder sister walk up on the stage with a smile on her face.

She hauled me out of my bed and took me near the floor-to-ceiling window that overlooked our neighbourhood in Denver. I gasped in surprise; the sun was just rising over the snow-covered scenery, making it look like somebody had spilled honey over everything.
My fourteen-year-old self could not believe what I was seeing.

"Merry Christmas, baby sister," she embraced me and kissed the top of my head.

'Hey! We're just three years apart!' was what I wanted to say to her, my tongue sticking out, but she had rarely ever hugged me in such a heart-warming way, so I stayed where I was, and whispered my wishes back.

She would be starting college next year at Harvard, so I wanted to spend as much time with her as I could. This may have been the last Christmas I celebrated with her.

I gently stepped away and went to the bathroom. I changed out of my favourite unicorn pyjamas - yes, unicorn pajamas - and wore a grey sweatshirt and jeans. I looked in the mirror and brushed my waist-length golden-brown hair, and tied it into a ponytail. I put on my watch, and I remembered a memory.

FLASHBACK (IN THE THIRD PERSON):

Chloë Williams woke up quite early by her standards on her ninth birthday. She always loved that time of the year: when spring began - the time when new flowers and leaves and nature in its entirety blossomed before her. The time to start afresh, to begin new things, when you found positivity in just about everything and thought that anything was possible.