A Dying Girl's List

Chapter 14

Lissa couldn't get any air into her lungs...

She couldn't breathe...

Jace started panicking and thought she might need water. This was new to him... He quickly snatched a glass from a nearby table and brought it closer to her lips, but water would be useless. She pushed the glass out of his hand, letting it fly across the room. She clutched her throat. It felt constricted. Like someone had tied her esophagus in a knot. Of course, water would be useless. She needed oxygen, not liquids.

Lissa knew then, that everyone was staring at her...at them, but she couldn't care less about the spectators. Her oxygen tank was in the car, but no words seemed to escape her chapped lips, so she couldn't tell him, luckily she parked her car right outside the window.

She used her index finger to point towards her car.

Jace turned his head to see what she was pointing out, with a shaky finger. When he saw it was her car, Jace immediately figured out what she meant, and rushed to grab her car keys from the table they sat at, and hurriedly escorted Lissa to her car. He was going to put her in the passenger seat, and drive her to the hospital, but Lissa had other ideas. She pushed him to the drivers' side with the little strength she had left.

Jace was confused, but still did what she wanted him to.

He helped her in, and he climbed in on the passenger seat. Lissa felt as if her entire upper body was on fire, and at the same time, the bottom half felt as if it was forced into an ice bath. She might've even started turning blue. Or red. Lissa pointed to the backseat, where her oxygen tank was, sideways, sprawled out on the middle of the seat. Jace grabbed it as quickly as he could, placed the oxygen mask on her face, and opened the valve.

While Lissa was getting the oxygen she needed, Jace suddenly felt like he couldn't breathe. The guilty feeling was constricting his airways, and simultaneously forming a lump in his throat.

After about thirty minutes of long and shallow in-takes of breaths, from both Lissa and Jace, she removed the mask and closed the valve. Jace wasn't looking at her, but rather he stared out the window. He felt a profound amount of guilt for abandoning Lissa, knowing full well what she was going through, and now this? An oxygen tank? Things had taken a drastic turn. He had never thought that things would get this bad. In four months? While he was doing things... She was doing things as well. Things to help keep her alive and to die peacefully.

The destruction he had caused by his departure, was far worse than he had thought. The only thing that remained was the debris from their love tower, hurting him far deeper than just externally... The atmosphere surrounding them was so mind-numbing. So much that Lissa couldn't even find herself saying one word, but she had to. They were both walking on eggshells around each other. Avoiding the elephant in the room. And neither of them seemed to have the energy to address it. But Lissa decided to swallow her pride and start first. There were some things she needed to know...

Lissa needed to know where she and Jace stood with each other. She needed to know why he left for her for four months and why he suddenly showed up and pretended like he suddenly cared about her – when, clearly he didn't, because if he had cared, he wouldn't have disappeared for four months, without any explanation whatsoever. She needed to know...

Lissa steadied her uneven breaths and calmed her mind. If she asks too many questions, this could turn out into another fight. And with their communication skills, another fight seemed to be lurking around the corner.

“Jace,”

“Jace...?” she tried again.

He slowly turned his head to face her. Her breath hitched in her throat. No matter how many times she saw him, he still gave her butterflies and was ninety-nine percent of the time the cause of her undeniably arid mouth. The cancer was the remaining one percent. His messy, curly brown hair, his strikingly hazel-brown eyes...