DAY 1 16/03-18

I can't tell my story, because I haven't lived it to the fullest yet. I can't predict the ending, but it will either be sad or happy, coming soon or later. That's all I know.
This is the first letter, but it may also be the last.

° ° °

I don't know much about this part of the city other than the fact that ambulances often passes by our apartment because apparently we live very close to the hospital, that the "church woman" wanders around the streets every morning and screams how good Jesus is, the candy store just down the street that's constantly filled with teenagers that's desperately trying to buy something tasty with only one dollar.

And, of course that the busses here in some strange way makes me equalized with my thoughts. If they walk of freely, I'm always walking beside them.

I have no idea how the buss driver's crappy driving, the stinky man beside me and the crying and screaming baby at the front could possibly make me think this clearly, but anyhow, I highly appreciate it.

The whole buss shakes violently again, and apparently I have reached my stop. I slowly stand up and grip my chair to not fall, and I look down at the chubby man and wait for him to give me space enough to go out.

The only thing I get in return is a loud cough and scrolling on the phone. I get a glimpse of the pictures he's looking at and I cringe; young girls showing too much skin, posing in front of mirrors. Oh God, he liked the picture.

Great. The only thing that was missing with my morning was an old, chubby, whiffy man that is liking pictures of half naked girls.

The bus stops, and I see the doors open to let in a warm breeze into the vehicle, but I still shudder. The man doesn't seem to give me much notice so I just walk right past him, pressing my body against the chair in front of him and squeeze me through. When I'm finally out I look over my shoulder, and the man is glaring at me.

I show him the middle finger and walk out, because maybe these twenty days is the last of my life, so why not live them to the fullest?

° ° °

It's when I step into the school building that I feel a change inside my body. It's like a switch. A switch in personality. There is School Keith, and there is Generical Keith. It's really no big difference between them - many describes me as grumpy and restrained both in school and outside - but School Keith is more solemn and hard to get to. School Keith doesn't stand out in the crowd of students expect for the appearance, and not in a good way. School Keith isn't social. On the contrary, both School and Generical Keith is throughout unsociable. The definition of antisocial.

School Keith is also late to class almost every day.

When I reach to my locker I throw my bag in and quickly take out the books I need. I leave my locker messier than it already was and halfrun to the classroom and fortunately the corridors are empty. My footsteps echoes is the silence and I can feel my chest start to ache. I breathe sharply through my nose and throw the classroom door open, earning thirtytwo pair of eyes on me.

I can blame the red on my cheeks from running. It would be believable.

"Mr. Kogane", Mrs Brander says and she has a small knowing smile on her face. "Please sit down, and try not to overdrive yourself next time."

"That's so unfair!" A kid in the back shouts. "Whenever we get late we are sent straight to detention but Mr. Golden Boy here practically walks on sunshine whenever he's late." Some others hum in agreement.

"Shut up, Leslie", another kid in the back says and then I hear her whisper "He probably has asthma, or something. That's why he's always so slow in PE."

Leslie giggles.

I quietly make my way to my seat in the middle and swallow down several insults and curses. I place my books on my desk with a loud thud and sit down - not as quickly - and it's after Mrs. Brander talks again that I realize this time I'm sitting beside someone.

I nearly scream.

"You always need to hear both sides of the story, and you're lucky I listen to all of it. So, why did you come late, really?" Blue eyes looks into my purple ones. A dark blue, dark enough to be mistaken as brown. But brown hair, short, sharp and shiny, and has the smallest hint of being curly at the ears and neck. Bronze skin, and too flawless for this school. And I'm not even exaggerating, or at least when I look at his face. I have no idea how the rest of his skin looks like and I really don't want to paint it up in my head. His nose is small, his lips just in between thin and thick. Even as he's sitting down and leaning closer to me I can see that his shoulders are broad, and he has just the right amount of muscles. His legs, they are long enough to bump into mine and extend them self even further.

"Hi stranger I have never seen before and don't know the name of", I mutter and pick up my sense again, opening my text book and I quickly riffle past all the pages with my silly drawings I made in class when I was bored. But I know that the boy sitting next to me saw them anyways.

"This stranger is called Lance, and is very pleased to meat you", he whispers and tries to shake my hand but I just eye it strangely, and he takes it back without even looking uncomfortable. He is always wearing this goofy grin and I feel myself getting irritated by ever second passing by.

"You're the one Hunk hasn't been able to stop talking about", I say when I realize it.

"Then you must either be the Nerdy Midget or the Edgy Emo", he says louder when Mrs. Brander tells us to keep working with our study sheet we were given.

"Really. Edgy Emo? Is that what he said about me?" I make a note in my head to confront Hunk later.

"You know, personally I think Mullet suits you better, so that's what I'll be calling you."

"We literally don't know each other at all, and you think you have the right to call me by stupid nicknames?" I ain't gonna lie, even his good looking face can't do something about his shitty personality. I have just known him for a minute, and he can already piss me off. That's quite fascinating.

"Yes", he simply says and flashes me a small smile.

"Then could you please gather your things and sit somewhere else?" I say and make a gesture at the several seats he could possible sit in but here. "My morning already sucks, so please don't make it worse."

"I'm fine sitting here", he says innocently and I grip my pen harder, pressing it roughly on my paper. "Besides, you seem like the person that other's don't listen to, like they don't want to understand you. I would gladly listen." Lance rests his chin on his palm and plant his elbow in the desk and he's looking straight at me, just looking and waiting. And I think, who is this new boy with a plain white and blue t-shirt, only one pen, a piece of paper and a schedule in front of him, talking to me like we could be friends here and now after just meeting each other, waiting for me to spill my story or something? He can really make it through school without any problem, or at least when it comes to friends and just being popular. He is the one who can look at piece of shit and start a whole discussion about it, and that discussion would last for a very long time. He is the one that is just naturally cool, commenting everyone without seeming weird, just throwing comments at everyone and smiling and laughing and joking and just being social.

I hate those people because secretly I envy them.

"Maybe I don't want to be heard", I mumble and pretend to be interested in the task at hand but really I just draw small curvy lines on my paper.

He scoffs. "Everyone wants to be heard, silly, but many just don't think that other's will listen. I want to be the one people can talk to, you know? Just being there for them."

"You're not American", I say to change the subject and my words drowns in the chatter filling the classroom. "You pronounce some words in a strange way."

"Are you calling spanish strange?" he gasps and crosses his arm with a pout. "Grosero."

Did he just say something in spanish and I can't even understand it? Quite hot.

"You do realize I have no idea what that means, right?" I say and I need to tell my heart to calm down. I avert my eyes from his to my paper instead but I know he's still looking at me. I can feel my hands slowly getting sweaty and I lift my hand up to not make my paper damp.

"Somebody should stop sleeping in Spanish lessons", Lance says and shakes his head with a big, teasing smirk.

"How do you know I take spanish?"

He shrugs. "A wild guess."

Then he steals my study paper and starts to write down the answers like he answered these questions his whole life.

"You're left handed." He simply says while he continues to write. "Cool."

"I'm actually ambidextrous", I say automatically and regret it.

Lance stops writing and slowly looks up at me, letting another smile spread across his face and his eyes twinkle under the artificial light and I can't stop staring.

"Even cooler", he states.

° ° °

The whole school already loves the new guy. I stand in front of my locker and almost everyone is surrounding him, chatting with him, admiring him. The conversation we had is already forgotten and so am I to him. Mullet who? Now I'll just be some guy walking past him in the corridor every day and he wouldn't even notice.

It's Friday which means we have PE, which means I'm going to skip it again. Like always.
There was a time where I actually liked it, and actually could attend to it, but sitting at the side of it all and just do nothing isn't a choice of mine. We still have half an hour's break after so I can do whatever I want for almost an hour and a half.

I throw my books in my locker and take my phone out to quickly put it in my back pocket before a teacher sees me and before closing my locker I take my little notepad from my bag to put it in the same pocket as my phone. I look down the corridor to see everyone gone, including Lance.

Making my way out of the school building, I think that I could have asked Pidge to skip class with me, but I know she wouldn't pass up the opportunity to knock the shit out of everyone today, having access to boxing gloves. And it's just an epiphany to not consider to even talk with Hunk during the lesson if not necessary.

Stepping outside the school building, I didn't have any high anticipation of how it would be, but I didn't think the air would be this sticky, and stick onto my skin like some kind of extra layer of warmth. It's windy, but you should know better than to get your hopes up when hearing it's going to be windy in Arizona.

My chest hurts, I'm warm and sweaty and I'm just overall irritated. I know stepping outside under the sun when it's starting to become spring isn't the best idea, or I'm going to dry out into a raisin or something and it would be very sad, but I also know staying inside the school building with the smell of sweat from other students in the air isn't much better. I'd rather be a raisin.

"Heyo Mullet!" I hear from behind me and I automatically spin around, taking out my notebook in the process and smacking it across the face belonging to the voice I just heard. There is a loud mierda! and some other curses in spanish I'm debating onto wanting to know what they mean.

"What the hell, man!" I see Lance cupping his little nose with both his hands and he cries out in some sort of agony, as if I just broke his nose.

I could have, if I wanted to hit a little harder.

"Lance", I say with an undertone. "Don't sneak up on me like that."

He gives me a cold scold. "I literally shouted your name across the whole field and you call that sneaking up on you?"

"Why are you here anyways?" I quickly - and what I hope, descretely - tuck my notebook back in my back pocket and stand completely still too calm my lungs down. The whole upper part of my body twinge, and I bite down on my tongue.

Stupid, idiotic idiot with azure eyes scaring me to a point where my chest hurts.

"I could ask you the same thing", he proudly crosses his arms over his chest and raises one of his eyebrows, looking at me like he could draw out words out of me with only his eyes.

I give him a deadpan stare. "I asked you first."

He looks at me with a iffy expression on his face, sweat glittering at his temples and forehead, making it look like he just came straight out from a photo shoot, unlike us others that just looks like sad, sweating students.

"If I tell you..." He points at me with a long finger. "Will you tell me?" Now he points at himself.

"How about a big, fat, independent no?"

Lance whines and throws his head back, looking up to the sky for some seconds before looking at me with a glare. "Then I won't tell you my reason!"

"Okay...?" I shake my head and turn around, wondering what new side of Lance I just witnessed. A hasty, noisy and whining Lance. Nothing nasty about my way of putting it out at all. Only if I want it to be.

I have spent too much time with Pidge.

"But you know..." Lance calls after me and I hear the sound of gravel under his footsteps and the next second he's walking beside me, catching up on my speed with his long legs without problem. "Because I'm feeling awfully nice today, I will tell you anyways..."

We reach to the benches just outside the school building and I sit down on the heated wood, fully aware of Lance doing the same thing -sitting in front of me -, and I sigh.

"I figured", I grumble, taking out my phone and just randomly pressing buttons to make it look like I'm actually doing anything. Your phone can be the great escape from socializing with others and making it look like you maybe have plenty of friends to text to.

"Sooo..." Lance starts and draws out on the vowels, and he must be very aware of the fact that I'm not showing any sign of interest towards him but he continues anyways. "At first I thought what I was doing is cool and stuff, but then I see you and I start to doubt it."

"There is nothing cool about being annoying, Lance", I say and peek from above my phone screen.

"Ouch." He places his hand over his heart and gives me an offended look. "That actually hurt, Mullet. You're already judging me and we don't even know each other."

"I'm stating nothing but facts. You're not even calling me by my name."

"Anyways..." He places his arms on the table and leans forward. I shut my phone off without breaking eye contact with him. "I thought it would be cool as I said, but you're here too, so I'm not being very original, am I?"

"What, exactly, are you talking about? If you could stop beating around the bush and say the real reason you're here and not in your lesson."

Lance looks around to make sure nobody is nearby and he nods once when he's just meated with the complete emptyness and a warm gust of wind blowing up our faces, making another wave of heat roll inside my body. Then he locks eyes with me again and raises his eyebrows, cupping his hands around his mouth.

"I'm skipping class without explanation", he whispers-yells and then leans back again, waiting for my reaction.

I just stare at him, trying to give him the r u serious look with my eyes. We're both silent, giving each other looks. He's still waiting for my reaction but I have no better reaction to offer than the one I have now.

"Really?" I try to sound amused but fail miserably.

"Oh, come on!" He flings his arms in the air before letting them fall back down on the wooden surface. "Don't tell me you don't have a list of things to do as a new student."

"Of course not. Partly because I'm not a new student and haven't been for a while now. But even then, I didn't carry around a list of things to do."

"But you seem to carry something else..." Lance smirks at me and he points at what must be my back pocket, and I instantly shift. "And I don't think you carry it to smack people in the face with it."

"Maybe I am." Is my voice shaking? It sounds shaky, doesn't it? "I could carry around a baton instead, but it would attract attention."

Now Lance is the one giving me the r u serious look.

"Mind your own business", I say instead and turn on my phone again.

"Well, my business is boring, but yours doesn't seem like it."

I want to stand up and leave but I can't. Maybe it's the fact that I don't get this much of attention, but the one attention I normally get isn't good. Maybe Lance is actually right; I think nobody wants to listen to me, but I still want to be heard.

Everyone wants to be heard, everyone wants to talk.

Even me. Surprisingly.

"You know", he says and any remaining traces of banter on his face are rubbed out to be replaced with a true smile instead. Like, honestly true. A smile you just normally fall for and if you had any doubt inside you, it just vanishes away. "I could listen. In fact, I would gladly listen. Stranger or not, you should have someone to talk to."

"How do you know I don't have anyone to talk to?" I say in defence but we both know my arguments is to no use. Sure, I have Shiro, Pidge and Hunk to confide to, but all of them tries to act like there isn't anything wrong going on in my life. They walk around acting like that to a point where I need to make myself think so too. And to a point where I talk about it less because I know it will make them uncomfortable. 

Lance tries to hold my gaze and surprisingly he succeeds. I notice he has freckles dotting the bridge of his nose, but you need to really focus to see them. I think about Hunk again, and the fact that Lance actually knows Hunk and is a really good friend of his. And Hunk, just being his innocent and pure self must really trust Lance, talking about him nonstop without saying much bad about him. Hunk just doesn't get whoever as his friend.

"What are you thinking about?" Lance asks and when I focus on him again I can see he is laughing at me with his eyes. That bastard. He knows he has made me question my motives, and he's satisfied with his work.

"About how I want to smack you in the face with my notebook again", I snap and I take out said object from my pocket, making Lance jerk slightly backwards - or as much as the bench provides - but then I place it in front of me. Both me and Lance looks at the frayed brown cover, and the Belongs to Keith Kogane in the right top corner, written in a sloppy handwriting. I have owned this notebook for almost five years, but whatever I wrote in it before, I have rubbed it all out. It's only now that I'm really using it.

"What are you writing in it?" Lance slowly asks after some seconds of silence.

I tap my fingers on my little notebook and suddenly I'm freezing, but at the same time my palms get awfully sweaty under the fabric of my fingerless gloves. I pull them off, but they keep on sticking onto my skin. 
Putting them to the side, I look up at the new boy again and he's wearing a sheepish expression on his face, but I don't know why. I hear the sound of cars on the road not so far from here, the rustling of leaves from the trees over us when the wind flies through them.

I think that, should I really tell? This new boy showing me two personalities just the first day of knowing me and wanting to listen to me. Azure eyes looking like chestnut brown, a plain attire to school, a boy that radiates too much energy which everyone seems to like.

Should I tell him this soon when I have hidden it for so long?

My heart says yes, but my logic say no.

"I write letters. Letters I don't know if I will ever read again."

His eyes widens. "You aren't suicidal, right?"

I snort and run my thumb over my notebook, feeling my heart beating somewhere in the gutter. "No, but I may end up dead anyways."

He gives me a look that shows he doesn't want to guess what I mean, because his guesses can be whatever, and that 'whatever' can be really bad and sad in this circumstance. Considering what I just said, you can think many things. I now he is making up different presumptions in his head right now.

"I skipped PE class because I can't attend to it." My hands are cold sweating, every nerve inside me crackles, sputters like oil mixed with water in a frying pan. "I came late today because I can't overwork my body." The words that are about to jump out of my mouth smolder my tongue.

I say: "I have cancer. Prostate cancer. And I may only have twenty days left to live." 

Lance pales, and it surprises me how he can lose so much color on his face when his skin is this dark.

I point at my chest. "I have a transplant lung, because it stopped working. My cancer is always spreading. Soon my lung isn't the only thing that will not work anymore." I roll my lower lip into my mouth. "I need to go to the hospital almost everyday to check if everything is okay. I take three tablets every day. Morning, lunch and evening. My life has become limited. I don't even know if I will survive these twenty days. And I don't know how painful they will be. I don't know if I will continue my life after these twenty days."

There. I said it. Against my own wishes. The weak wishes that didn't do such a good job in speaking up. But these wishes were barely there as soon as Lance offered to try and understand me. He offered me a chance in declaring my struggles in life, and I took it. Simple as that. I took it without reflecting over the ramifications.

Once again my eyes wanders over to his face without me wanting it, and I'm met with a indulgent smile. This smile reaches up to his eyes, bringing out his wrinkles that makes him just more real.

He says: "Then I will make sure these twenty days will be the best." He glances down at the object I carry around with me. "Keith."

° ° °

But I really hope this isn't the last. Because I have something exciting to write about. I think it will be. I have accepted something that may cause a plot twist in the story I'm living in.

I really want to reach the end. I really want to read my full story and find out the end, but I hope the end won't come soon. I hope there is more pages that I have yet to discover.

° ° °

HEYYOOOO!

Sooo, I'm back with another book! Just know, I wrote this whole book before publishing, so ever other chapter is already written. I put really effort and time into this, and I hope you can see it throughout this book. Many things in this book is based off of things in my life, so read this with that fact in the back of your mind, I guess XD What those things are I'm not going to mention, tho.

Haha, here you finally have the book Chantelle312 I know you waited too long for it 😂

I can't wait to see your reactions throughout the book, and with all of this I just want to wish a happy reading❤️