A Dying Girl's List

Chapter 7

“Let's go, Jace, I want to skate!”

“Yes ma'am,” she heard him say, which followed by a chuckle.

Lissa hadn't bought the Polaroid yet, so she had to use her phone's camera for the time being.

“Jace, can you use my phone to take a picture of me when I'm on the ice?”

“Yeah sure, let's get on that ice,” they got their skates and headed out onto the ice.

•

Lissa and Jace spent almost half the day skating. She admits she's no pundit, but she could at least do a few twirls on the ice, even though she's never been there before. It was sort of like rollerblading, and she knows how to do that very, very well.

The one time Stephanie had managed to succeed in persuading Lissa to agree to go out with her, Steph chose rollerblading as their activity. They spent that entire day rollerblading, so like everything else they learned to do together – riding a bike without training wheels on, or a new topic learned in class – Lissa got the gist of it pretty fast, so it was a no-brainer that Lissa would gradually become a pro at rollerblading.

Lissa was so into her ice-skating dance, she didn't even notice Jace skating towards her,

“How does this look?” Lissa stopped twirling to look at the picture.

“Oh my gosh, Jace, this is amazing! What are you? Some kind of photographer or something?” she gushed, admiring the photo.

“Photographer-in-training. Another 2 years and I'll be a professional,” the pride in Jace's voice was evident. He felt very proud about almost getting his degree.

“That's so cool,”  she replied.

Jace captured the photo at the perfect time – while she was spinning on the ice – and it looked incredible.

“Oh,” he crouched down and picked up a paper from the ice.

“I think you dropped this?”

He unfolded the page. Lissa couldn't reach out to grab it from him fast enough. She was too slow. Lissa was jarred. She didn't want him to find out like this. It must have slipped from her jean pocket when she was twirling. The white rectangle in his hand seemed to be the only thing she could focus on. She watched as he carefully unfolded the paper.

“Things to do before I die?” he read the title out loud. Lissa couldn't tell what he was feeling, his face was...stoic? Yeah, stoic.

“What's this, Lissa?” he asked, calmly.

She couldn't find the words to say something, how does she tell him? Could she tell him? They barely knew each other, she had good reason to not be sharing such personal issues with him. She should trust him. He seemed...trustable. That twenty questions they played in the car, hinted slightly towards his trustworthiness, so she should be able to tell him.

“What's this, Lissa?” he asked again, this time, not so calmly.

“It's a list,” she responded quickly, without thinking about what she was uttering. All she did was state the obvious.

“I can see it's a list, why does it have this title?” he asked in an irritated tone, waving the List in front of her face.

“I'm sorry, I was going to tell you, I just didn't know how!” her eyes began to well up with tears. He saw it, and on instinct, his face softened, and he spoke calmly. He was still irritated, though.

“Lissa? Tell me the truth. I can take it, I promise,” he said, stroking her arm. An unexplainable heat rushed through her body, even though the building was like -10 degrees.

“I have brain cancer. Something called Medulloblastoma. It means there's a tumor slowly growing on my hindbrain, it can't be operated on cause it's too dangerous...” as soon as she started explaining her reason for the List, the reality dawned on her.

She couldn't stop crying, the tears just wouldn't stop flowing. She felt the salty tears falling down her cheeks, but she didn't bother to wipe them away – like she wished she could with the cancer...

“I, uh, I only have 2 years left, Jace,” she sobbed. Her body shaking.

Lissa paused to congregate herself.

“That's why I made the list,” she blew out.

“I...I'm so sorry, Lissa. Is this why you were getting all those headaches and feeling so dizzy?” he placed a hand on her arm as an act of comfort.

“No…” she shrugged his hand off her arm.

“I had like a brainstem stroke. The doctor told me – just before you came back in – that I have to go back in a month or two to get something for it. If the tumor hasn't shrunk by that time,”

“What do you need to get?”

“I don't know yet,” she shrugged.

“Listen, Lissa,” he started, he grabbed her hands and her whole body was suddenly filled with warmth, again. A warmth Lissa didn't know she needed, desperately,

“we're new friends, 'kay, I know that, but I promise you, Lissa, I'll help you complete your list in the next two years,” Jace was determined to stand by Lissa through this difficult time, by the blank looks on her parents' faces, he figured they wouldn't. Jace wasn't stupid, he knew how to hide emotions behind mask of nothingness. He knew that all too well...

“Thanks, Jace, I appreciate that, really I do, and it's sweet and all, but I don't want to burden you with this. This wouldn't have happened if I had taken better care of my health, so this is all on me, and it's up to me to deal with the consequences. And if those consequences are shortening my lifespan, I need to make my new normal, a better one than before. Alone,”

“It really won't be a burden, besides I already helped you cross off one, and I didn't even know about the list, or the cancer, for that matter,” he reasoned. If Lissa was going to deny his help, he was going to ignore her ignorance and still help. Plus a ton of people had owed him a couple of favors, so why not make use of them?

“Thanks, Jace. I honestly don't know how many times I'm going to have to thank you,” she chuckled, finally patting the tears away.

“You don't, I'm doing this to help you, Lissa, no thanks needed. We're basically in this together now,” he smiled.

“I guess so,” she answered with a ghost of a smile.

•

It was just past five when they left the rink. Jace wanted to take Lissa to one more place before he dropped her off at her home.

“I think the ice-rink was enough for today, don't you think?” she spoke.

“Yeah. But this will be quick,”

Jace drove to Target. A sneaky smile plastered on his face like a mask, the entire ride over there.

“What are we doing at Target?”

“Number one,” he answered, shortly.

Lissa couldn't believe her ears. Jace was buying her a Polaroid camera.

“What did I do to deserve you?” she gushed.

“You being you,”

She smiled at him... Jace was truly the most amazing person she had ever met – still is – and she had Steph to thank for dragging her to that match. It's just extremely unfortunate that they met under those dire circumstances.

Somewhere in the back of her mind, Lissa wondered if he would've still been around today if she hadn't fainted that night.

They bought the camera – after catching on a lot of shenanigans in the aisles – and once they were outside, Jace snapped a picture of her outside of Target. She threw her arms in the air and grinned widely.

Impeccable photograph.

She crossed off another thing from her List today – number one: buy a Polaroid camera.

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