A Dying Girl's List

Chapter 8

(21 months left) (September, October, November)

Three months had passed by, and they had crossed off a lot of things from the List thus far.

They did number two: ride in a convertible car, which was absolutely incredible. Jace had captured a picture of Lissa in the driver's seat, with the wind wafting through her hair.

After that, they completed number three: learn the basics of surfing, which, to be honest, was kind of a complex thing to learn, but Lissa still enjoyed the experience. She was a neophyte, not that she knew what that was, her instructor just told her that, so she couldn't go too deep into the water, but she floated close to the shore and drifted on the board, and Jace captured another magnificent picture. Since Lissa couldn't do an ample amount of things at one time – due to the headaches and the dizziness – Jace insisted they delay completing the List for a while.

•

One week later, they were at it again.

Jace and Lissa became extremely close in those past few weeks. Not as in brother-sister close, but close as in where they could might as well have been dating. But, Lissa didn't know exactly how Jace felt. Jace felt the same, but he kept mum because he was unaware of her feelings towards him. Besides, Lissa didn't want him to think, that he had to date her, all because she was going to succumb a couple of months later, and Jace wanted to show Lissa he wanted to date her for her bubbly personality, not because she was going to kick the bucket a couple months later.

It still felt surreal each time one of them mentioned the word 'death', so they used euphemisms instead.

If he is only pursuing an interest in me out of pity, it wouldn't have been fair towards me, Lissa thought to herself, one day.

During the three weeks after that, they completed numbers four up until ten: go camping for a weekend,

baked a three-tier cake, which was very chaotic – which, in turn, ended up with both their faces covered in flour, and a ghostly photo thereafter – and did live karaoke, which was dreadful, but fun.

Jace could barely do a note. Good thing photography was his passion, and not singing.

Go bungee jumping, after that. This one has an interesting story to it. Lissa had appeared at Steph's house one day – without Jace – and explained to her what she wanted to do.

“Bungee jumping? You?” Stephanie asked, “Since when? Last I remember, you said no when I asked you to go with me. Why the sudden change of heart?” nothing ever seemed to get past Steph or Lissa for that matter. Lissa noticed the moment Stephanie opened the door that something was...off. Stephanie's eyes didn't immediately sparkle when she saw Lissa, only after a couple of seconds after that, did a smile stretch across her face.

“No change, I just had...a revelation a couple of weeks ago,” Lissa replied, stepping past Steph and walking into the kitchen. This place was after all like her second home.

Mi casa es Su casa, Mrs. Howards had always said. Lissa took those words a tad bit too seriously.

“Yeah? What sort of revelation? To not come to school anymore? To be spontaneous and not text or call your best friend for three full weeks? Please, Lissa, enlighten me. Which one of those was it?” Stephanie asked, crossing her arms walking to the other side of the island, keeping Lissa's eyes focused on hers and casually leaning down on her elbows, shielding the knife that laid on the countertop from Lissa's field of vision.

Lissa was stunned. Stephanie sounds off. Her words sound forced and her sarcasm wasn't a joke. She was dead serious,

“Neither,” Lissa managed to say, Stephanie gave her a look that said 'oh, really?', then Lissa continued, “Well, a bit of the latter...”