It was summer 2019 and we were sixteen. We were driving to our favorite restaurant by the beach. Hair down, roof up, and music blasting. ‘Grenade’ was playing on the radio, we were on the second verse and getting ready to yell the chorus. 

We arrived at the restaurant and ordered our usual, sharing one large pizza and a banana split. We then walked down to the pier, sat down, and let our legs swing over the water. She put her head on my shoulder and we stayed like that for what felt like hours.

We started driving back when we saw that the dairy shack was open, she went in. She came back five minutes later with two bowls of vanilla ice cream. We ate it in silence, just living in the moment. She was peaceful to watch in every way. Jet-black hair, ocean-blue eyes, and a childlike innocent smile.

We didn’t know how much time we had left but we tried to use our time wisely, going through everything on her bucket list. We were down to the last thing on her list. Go swimming at night. After our late-night ice cream stop, we drove to the beach.

She was in the water faster than lightning. She looked happy. After swimming in the sea for an hour or two, we sat down on the sand. The glint of the moonlight on her face made her seem alive. She then looked up at the moon and said, 

“to the moon and back, right?” 

I looked over to answer her question but she was already gone.

I sat alone watching the moon this time, thinking of the time when I was with her on the beach. She was the light in my world, she knew how to make everything better, and yet she was gone in less than an hour. 

This was the second time I had gone through this. You’d expect it to hurt less the second time but it’s only worse. She was the only reason that I had kept living and now I can’t spend 10 minutes without someone asking how I’m holding up. I told them, 

“I’m fine,”

They walked away, believing the lie that I fed them yet again.

Falling asleep was just a reminder that the next day was going to be the same. We used to stay awake all night and plan our eighteenth birthday trip. We were going to go to Paris so someone would ask for her name and she could say,

“Paris,”

It was going to be the first trip we took together but now all this is a distant memory that holds the reality in place.

…

At 22:36 on the first Thursday of May 2003, I was born. They didn’t know what I was diagnosed with or how I got it but, what they did know was that I wasn’t going to live for long. Growing up, I didn’t have many friends because of my “special” unknown diagnosis, and at school, people would treat me differently. It was disgusting. 

I met her at my monthly doctor’s appointment. She had strawberry blonde hair, dazzling green eyes, and a smile that hid the truth. Even from a mile away, I could tell that she was going through a lot. I knew that look on her face a little too well. I mean her brother, I assume, was in the wheelchair, her mother was sorting out papers and she was dancing around in a clown costume.

I heard the nurse call her brother’s name, Diego Cooper. Relatively cool name. The mother and ‘Diego’ went with the nurse but the girl stayed back. I was curious why. She caught me staring and came over to where I was sitting. 

She asked me why I was here and told me it was rude to stare. We talked more and she told me her name, Skye, and why her brother was here. He was paralyzed and didn’t have long to live. Talking to her was like a breath of fresh air like I could take on the whole world and like all the weight was gone. We exchanged numbers and started hanging out after a few days.

She didn’t judge me and it was a comforting change. It felt like I could finally be myself. When I felt too sick to go to the beach or cinema, she would come to my house with snacks and we’d watch a movie. The best thing about it was that if I fell asleep, I knew she’d be there when I woke up.

I was there when Diego passed away. She was falling apart and the only thing that kept her standing was her mother. She never met her father and she didn’t want to. 

I didn’t want her to go through it again so I tried to push her away slowly. I would shorten our outings, claiming I was tired. It didn’t work. It was no use, she came to all my appointments and deep down, I was glad. It hurt to see her like that but I didn’t want to lose her. She was all I had left. She kept me going.

She looked so happy that night. Nothing could possibly go wrong because we had the world at our feet. She always told me,

“I love you to the moon and back,”

I never said it to her because it would make leaving so much harder. She knew that I felt the same way even if she never brought it up.

She was so excited when we started our bucket list. Then we got to the last thing and there was something in her eyes. Something that wasn’t there before. Sadness. Could it be because our adventure was over? Or could it be because she saw what was coming before I did?