Sunlight peeked through the white curtains of the grey hospital room. Everything here seemed so colourless. The bedsheets, the pillow, the floor. Everything was either grey or white.

Colourless.

Just like my heart.

And the only person what the power to colour it with more shades than the rainbow was lying on the bed with her eyes closed tiredly.

And it terrified me to think that those eyes might never open again.

At the sound of my footsteps, Rose opened her eyes and smiled.

Damn her.

How could she still smile?

"Evan!" she grinned.

She always did that. Whenever she saw me, wherever she saw me. She would always grin and say my name like it was the happiest word on planet earth.

Yeah, didn't make sense to me either.

I glared at her.

She flinched slightly, "Ow, geez. What crawled up your ass?"

"Are you fucking serious?" I finally let my anger lose, "How can you act so careless? How? Just how? You're fucking dying for God's sake!"

She winced and I immediately felt like an extreme jerk.

"I.." my voice broke, "Why? Why you? Why didn't you tell me, Rose?"

She bit her lip and smiled slightly, "Because I didn't want to see you in pain. It's only mine to bear."

Instantly I rush off to her. Placing my palm in her cheek, I look her directly into the eyes, "No way in hell am I letting you suffer through this alone. Rose...I.. You..."

"You're not very good at expressing your emotions, are you?" she smirked.

"Shut up," I muttered,"I'm trying, okay? I'm not a Jane Austen like you."

Taking a deep breath, I looked down.

This was so much easier when I wasn't looking at her.

"You taught me so much, Rose. Before I met you, I had lost trust on almost everyone. I thought everyone was the same. Selfish bastards. Only caring for themselves. But you Rose...no matter who it was, if you thought they needed a friend, you'll always go sit with them. No matter how many they were, you could always put a smile on every kid's face with just one sentence. No matter the age, you would always help someone. It didn't matter how hard it would be. You brought colour to my colourless world. You made me see the good side. You pierced my darkened heart with your lightened words."

I stopped and looked her right into the eyes, "You changed my point of view on life, Rose. You changed my life. And I want you to be in that life. I want to be in your life. So please let me be with you Rose. Please."

It was impulsive. I didn't think at all. I had no idea how I had the courage to do it since I had never done it before.

I leaned in and pressed my lips gently onto hers.

And suddenly all of my worries melted away. It felt right. It was a kiss of promise. A kiss of warmth. A kiss of longing.

A kiss of love.

Feeling something damp on my hand, I pulled away.

Tears were brimming in her eyes.

Tears of sadness, joy, want and love.

I brushed them away with my thumb, "Ssh, don't sweetheart. You'll see, when you're 40 year old, you'll laugh at how childish you were being. Do you want to laugh at yourself? Huh? Is that what you want?"

A strange noise of laugh mixed with sob escaped from her throat as she shook her head.

I smirked at her, "Very attractive."

She sniffed as she buried her head into my chest, "Shut up!"

I chuckled as I held onto her shaking body tightly. She was so thin. Her whole body could be wrapped around my one arm. She was so fragile that I feared she'd break if I just breathed a little forcefully.

And yet, she was stronger than any other person I had known.

"Do you know why I always smile?" she whispered with her head still buried into my chest.

"Tell me."

"Because if something happens-"

I cut her off with a growl. My grip on her waist tightening.

"Listen!" she snapped at me, "Just listen."

I relaxed sightly and stroked her soft hair lightly, "Whatever."

She sighed, "Thank you. Now...no one knows what'll happen in the future. If something happens to me, I want people to remember the smiling me. I want them to have pictures of the grinning girl who was always happy no matter what. I want them to remember the friendly girl who had always helped everybody."

Her voice broke, "I'm so selfish, Evan. I'm not like those amazing characters in those books. They stay away from their loved ones because they don't want them to be hurt. But me? I get close to people so they'll remember me if I leave. If I don't exist in body and soul anymore, I still want to live in their memories Evan! I'm so selfish!"

I held her tightly as she broke down once again. Incorrigible words escaped from her lips tangled with soft cries.

"You're not selfish, Rose," I whispered as I kissed her hair, "Wanting to live, that isn't selfish."

"It is!" she cried out clutching onto me tightly.

"No," my voice was determined, "Tell me, don't you want to see the rain once again like we did that day? Don't you want to annoy me in class like you did that day? Don't you want to listen to music together once again? Don't you want to kiss me once again? How is wanting that selfish? Leaving everyone behind and just giving up, Rose, that's selfish."

Silence merged with our ragged breathings reigned around us for a while.

She let out a watery laugh, "You're the worst, Evan. You know that right?"

She intertwined her fingers with mine, "I thought I had accepted it. I thought I was fine living in people's thoughts. I thought I'll be okay leaving the world. But now...now you've shown me all of these dreams, Evan. And I want to make them real. I...I want to sit with you under the sunny sky. I want to argue with you about cheesy chick flicks. I-I want to eat ice cream with you while standing under the cold rain. Evan...I want to go to our first date."

I felt tears coming through my own eyes too. Her words struck the fear in my heart with so much force that I almost staggered back.

No.

No.

No!

But in my heart, I knew.

I pulled away from her only to grab her chin once again and press a deep passionate kiss on her lips. This time the kiss was full of anger, sadness, longing and love.

"When is your operation?" I huskily said as I tried to control my breathing.

"What? Oh...uh...tomorrow?" she looked confused as if to why I'd ruin such a great moment.

Tomorrow.

I had just one day?

I tried to smile through my blurry eyes, "Then exactly a day after your operation, we're going to a date. Okay? Just you and me."

A stray tear slipped from her right eye, "Will there be chocolate ice creams?"

Letting out a watery laugh, I nodded, "Yeah. It's an all you can eat buffet."

She nodded biting her lips. I knew she was trying to control the tears. I knew she was trying to be strong for me.

Because I was trying to do the same for her.

We both knew that this might be our last time. That life wasn't a fairytale and the most amazing people were the ones that were taken away the fastest.

And she was the most amazing person I had ever seen.

We both knew what we were doing. We were saying good bye. But at the same time, we were promising to fight for the future.

It's so strange, isn't it?

Closing my eyes, I leaned in to kiss her once again. I didn't know how many times we kissed, how many times we cried or how many times we smiled.

I just knew that she was with me and I was with her.

"You know, Rose...I lo-"

"Don't say it," she kissed me once again, "Say it after tomorrow."

A tear slipped out of my eye, "Yeah? I will. I will say it every god damn day after tomorrow."

She smiled. That special smile off hers which was mixed with a billion of emotions. Happiness and sadness. Warmth and longing. Joy and desperation.

"I will too. Every freaking day."

This is not the end -.- There's an epilogue which is mostly the main part of this story