Look out for the <>!

"Please eat something, Clare," mom begged me with a tray of food in her hands.

I looked at it and turned my nose to it, since the smell made me sick.

"Eat Clare."

I shook my head at her, but that made me even dizzier than I was. I shivered as I placed a blanket around my legs, even though I felt like I was burning up at the same time. My body ached, and I felt like death, really. Over the course of the days, I felt like I have gotten significantly worse since then, or maybe it was because all the drugs had left my system now and I could feel everything.

Last night without my parents knowing I trashed all my medications, if I was dying I refused to take them. They would not help me now, so why waste them? "No, I rather not, please mom, just the smell makes me queasy."

She frowned at me. "I'm going to leave the soup here and if you don't eat it by time, I come back..."

I nodded at her. "Sure mom." I had the full intent to dump that bowl of soup down the toilet after she left.

She set it on a tray and then put her cold hand on my forehead. I pushed back, hating when she did this. "I think you're running a fever. I'm going to get you some medication and you can't take it on an empty stomach so just eat a little," she begged.

"Fine," I sighed as I pulled at my socks.

At that moment, my phone buzzed, and the screen lit up showing a text from Peter. I didn't even move towards my phone with the broken screen. I didn't want to. He had been sending texts to me nonstop since we broke up, but I hadn't responded to a single one of them. They all said something around the same thing, 'I'm sorry if I did something to you, I don't care what you say, you'll survive, I know you can beat it...' so on and so on. No matter what he would say, it wouldn't make me change my mind about him. The thing he didn't get was that I have given up. I would not win this, and I didn't want him to see me decline. He needed to move on, and this would be easier on both of us.

"Peter?" mom asked, as if she already knew the answer.

"No," I lied quickly to her.

"Uh hu," she said as she walked out of the room, not believing me.

Lately, my lies had been less believing, but it didn't bother me. I think deep down; it didn't matter if they could see through me, since the end was so near now. I laid back down on my bed, resting my head on some a pile of pillows, looking up at the ceiling.

Mom walked back into the room and thrust out her hand. "Here, take this Clare." I brought out my hand, and she dropped a few red pills into my hand.

"Fine," I said and popped the pills into my mouth.

"And I'm just going to pretend that you didn't throw away all of your other pills," she said, with a hint of frustration in her voice. But she didn't scold me, she didn't punish me, like in the past. She just moved on from the conversation casually as she got the soup on the tray and brought it to me. "Eat," she demanded as she sat down right beside me on the bed to watch me.

I forced a smile. "You will not leave me alone until I eat this, are you?"

She shook her head and then smiled. "Nope."

I rolled my eyes as I took a bite of the soup. I forced a few bites down my dry throat but by the third bite; I realized I was hungry, since I had not eaten in over 20 hours and finished the rest with no problems.

After I finished the bowl, mom smiled widely at me. "There you go! Not too hard," she said and kissed my forehead.

"That is it! I hate school! I hate everyone in it! So immature!" Farrah screamed downstairs as she slammed the door shut behind her at that same moment.

I smiled as I looked at the time, knowing that Farrah just finished her day at school. And here comes the true entertainment of the evening. Farrah to the rescue, like always.

"Farrah dear, come here. Let's talk about it," mom yelled down at her.

I heard the sound of her heavy footsteps walk up the stairs to my bedroom. Her make-up ran down her face with tears, hinting that she cried for the entire walk home. "what happened?" I asked her with concern in my voice. She didn't cry often, so there had to be something wrong.

Her eyes welled up with tears again as she thought about what she was going to say to us. "Some girl, one of your old friends, was talking crap about you. Saying something like you got pregnant, and you dropped out of school because of it. She said that you weren't sick because she saw you at the dance months ago and you were fine. Well, I couldn't stand that, so I defended you. It got heated, and she slapped me," she said and showed the side of her face that was a little pinker than the other side.

I raised my eyebrows as I looked at her face, knowing that they hit her hard. "What did you do? Did you stand for that?" I asked her, wanting to know all the details. I felt like sometimes I lived through my sister. I lived for her exciting life, for her drama, stories, and jokes. I wanted to know all that happens in her life because I never got it myself.

"Well I didn't want to get a detention like her, but before she left the classroom, I may or not have put my gum in her hair," she smiled guiltily.

I smiled widely at her, feeling a strong sense of pride. "That's my sister."

She frowned. "But that wasn't all that happened. That boy I was dating, well he didn't take the breakup well and spread rumors about me. When I tried to talk about it with my friends, they didn't give me the time of day. I sent them texts, trying to talk to them but they're shunning me," she told me as her eyes filled with tears again. Sounds like she was having a rough day.

<>

I frowned at her as I suddenly remembered how vicious high school was and was glad that I wasn't in that mess. I felt sorry for Farrah though; she didn't need to go through this since she had already so much on her plate. "I'm sorry Farrah."

"Yeah, me too, but you know what? I have you as a friend, so how many more do I really need?" she said with tears in her eyes.

I forced a smile at her and gave her a hug, as my heart broke, knowing that soon I would be gone and she would have to rely on other people as friends. "True."

These moments were the ones that hurt the most, knowing that I would not be around for her. I would not be there to listen to her, to be her friend. She was going to be alone through all the tough times in her life, and just the thought made me sick to my stomach.

Mom looked at the time and pointed downstairs. I nodded at her, knowing that she was expecting someone around now to pick up some unwanted things for donation, and she had to get the bags to the door before they came.

There was a minute of silence as I held onto Farrah, not wanting to let go, fearing that this moment would end too soon. Farrah spoke up as she pulled out of the hug. "Clare, please do the new treatment in California," she blurted out with a sniffle.

I frowned at her. Was this show all to convince me to go? I don't think I even told her about that. Did my parents? Did doctor Patel? This had to be a ply for me to go. I questioned if her story was actually true of if it was just for the drama to pull on my heart.

Frustration washed over me as I looked at her. Why did everyone want me to try this treatment so bad? There was still a good chance that it wouldn't work. Why would I try another failed attempt just to suffer? "No, I don't think that's a good idea." I shook my head at her.

Farrah cried again, harder than before. "Clare! Please! What I'm going to do without you?! I need you in my life! I need you at my wedding, at my graduation, when I have kids, and so many other points in my life. I want you there for everything. I'm going to be an only child all alone, like Peter. You know he hates being an only child and I will too. And you know what scares me the most? Loosing my best friend. You can't just give up. You have to keep fighting, for me, because I can't bear to think of life without you."

Her words cut deep into me like a knife slicing through butter. I hated to imagine what she would do without me or what my parents would do without me. I honestly pushed those thoughts to the back of my mind whenever it came. I didn't want to leave them. I wanted to be with them forever. I didn't want to miss any important moments in Farrah's life, but sometimes life happened and there wasn't much to do to change that. "Do you think I want to die, Farrah? Because I don't. It scares the hell out of me. But you have to understand that I am tired. I am tired of failed tests, bad news, I'm just tired of fighting. You have to understand that."

She shook her head as tears kept streaming down her face. "No, I will not take that as an answer. I won't forgive you for this."

I lost words as I tried to make my face like stone, but I knew she could see through that. She always could. "You will someday. You'll find the love of your life and have a family and maybe then you'll forgive me."

Saying nothing more, she got up from the bed and stormed out of the room, slamming the door behind her.

I let out a breath of frustration. This was not how I wanted the end of our relationship to playing out. I didn't want her to be mad at me with little time I had left. I only wanted wonderful memories of me in a better light.

After a few minutes, I got up from my bed and walked over to my bathroom. I felt like a good hot shower could clear my mind.

I stripped down at looking at myself in the mirror see I looked more sickly than ever. My eyes, sunken and bloodshot, like I hadn't slept fully in weeks. I could see my sternum and my ribs suck out a little too much. On top of that, I had a sickly yellow tint to my skin that I couldn't look at any longer. I twisted my face from the reflection as I got into the shower, not wanting to look into that girl's eyes anymore, wanting that image to be wiped from my memory.

I stood in the shower until I ran out of energy and I just sat down. I felt the hot water heat me up, soak my hair, tickle my limbs. It made me feel something other than pain. I thought about what Farrah told me. Her last words rang in my mind like she just said them, "I will never forgive you for this."

She said this like it this was a given that if I went, it would work, and it would cure me. But she didn't know that. She was too optimistic because I knew that there was a large chance that it wouldn't work and then all that travel and hospital stays would be for nothing. I shook my head at the thought of being alone in a hospital room, suffering, without my family, across the country. No, that wasn't for me.

But I didn't want to die. I didn't want my life to end. I still had so much I wanted to do. I wanted to get a drivers' license; I wanted to rent an apartment with friends; I wanted to pay bills, to kiss in the rain, and last, get married and have a happily ever after. Most importantly, I wanted to live the rest of my life in peace without another hospital trip. Was that too much to ask?

Once the water got cold, I got out as I felt immediately light-headed. I went to grab my towel when everything went black.

I woke up to pounding on the door. "Clare, open up. You're scaring me. I'm going to have your father break down this door if you don't open."

I quickly realized what had happened. "I'm ok mom," I said in a weak voice, reminding myself that I need to sound stronger.

"Oh Clare, please open the door," she begged me.

"Give me a minute," I said as I slowly pushed myself up from the ground, rubbing my head and feeling a bump on the side of it. I just prayed that mom wouldn't notice. I put on my nightgown and opened the door.

On the other side, mom was almost in tears. "What happened? I was knocking on this door for a solid minute until you answered. You scared me." She said and held me so tight I couldn't breathe.

Only a minute and she was freaking out? Maybe I could cover this without her knowing the truth. "I just got a little caught up in trimming my nails. I head headphones in," I lied. "Sorry, mom."

"When I knock, you answer, always. Do not do that again. Ever," she said firmly as she let go of me.

I nodded at her. "Promise."