We will save Meg for later.

You get the dessert after you are done with your dinner. 

Let's start with my life, shall we?

I was a normal human being and I had a normal life. There was nothing interesting about it. Nothing worth writing a book about, anyway. No point in wasting trees just for a boring old book no one would want to read. It would have been cruel to the nature.

Yet here I am, writing a book. Alas, desperate times call for desperate measures.

Speaking of nature, it's one of the reasons why I wrote this book. I am a part of nature. I am one of those trees they cut down so heartlessly just for fire. I am one of those flowers. I am wilted. I am dying. 

Not in the way a human does. I am dying inside. I am probably already dead.

I couldn't save myself. But I can save the nature - the other dying flowers. The other human beings. Those who are living like me; slowly dying inside. 

I am not sure if the old me is dead. She probably is. 

All I know for sure is that the old me is gone. I am not who I was anymore. I am Cookie. That's the new name they all gave me.

Why? 

You will find out soon enough.

_______________________________________________________________

It was November, 2012. 

The time was exactly 1 PM. I was in my new high school. 

I had to change schools because my mother got a job. A better one, so she could provide better for our family. My father died before I was born. I never knew him - not personally. I heard tales about him and his courage. How brave he was to become a soldier. They said I was as brave as he was. 

Maybe I was. But that was when the old me still existed. The new me is a coward.

It all started when I heard something.  

 'Have you seen her face? Always streaked with tears. Crybaby!' That stranger, a girl I never met before, was talking about me.

How typical. 

Rumors. Name calling. Arrogant students making rude comments about other students. Welcome to high school.

But since that day, Crybaby became my nickname. That's what they all called me. Even my friends. 

I was a Crybaby. 

But did they know why? 

Maybe they did. Maybe they didn't. I might never know. 

Here's why I was crying:

River.

Yet another reason why I wrote this book.

_______________________________________________________________

I ignored the girls, running past them towards my locker. I pushed my hair behind my ear, like the way I always did whenever I was nervous. I was shivering so much I was afraid I would just collapse. 

That's when the pain started. It was excruciating.

 My left leg was hurting so much I had to sit down. I stretched my leg in front of me, trying to soothe the pain. It just made it worse. There was swelling on my left knee. 

The pain stopped, but the swelling didn't. My knee looked like a giant lump. Nobody came to my aid. 

I picked myself up and continued with the day. My legs were just tired. That's what I thought at that time, anyways. 

I was wrong.

Another reason why I wrote this book: Oesteosarcoma. 

Bone cancer. Rare, but it exists. 

I know what you are thinking: she is going to die.

Spoiler, I won't die. 

The old me was the one who died, remember? Cookie lives on. She has to. It's the Crybaby who dies. 

Do I feel sorry for spoiling it all for you? 

No. You would have found out soon, anyways. There's no point in keeping secrets. 

I won't spoil anything else, I promise. 

You will find it out soon enough.

I feel like I repeat this line too much. But there is a reason behind that, too. 

One number down, nine more to go. I can't wait for the countdown to finish.