User blog:Twihard-fanpire/Grace's Story Chapter 1 (Twihard-fanpire fanfiction)

Once again, this is just fanfiction, written truly for fun and no harm was meant in the creation of it. This is Chapter 1 of my fanfiction and I also included the preface that I already put on my wikiblog, in case you missed it. Hope you enjoy this but please, refrain from leaving hate mail on this. Enjoy! :)

Preface

"Live every day as if it were your last and then some day you'll be right." ~H.H. "Breaker" Morant

Life is really short. Sometimes, life tends to fly past you. Deadlines and expiration dates, like the one that seems to be printed on the bottom of my foot, seem to speed it up even more. Fabulous.

1. Bucket List

Most kids would take the opportunity summer gives them to sleep in. Not me, or at least not anymore.

Ever since being diagnosed with Leukemia at the beginning of the summer, I’ve used every moment I could to do something productive. I wouldn’t have to worry so much about time if I’d decided to take the radiation treatments, but who wants to be weak for two years when I could be strong and myself for a little over one? So, time manager had become my job in the last few months. I made myself a bucket list, like that movie with Morgan Freeman and Jack Nicholson, of things I really wanted to do before… well, I didn’t want to think of the final bit just yet.

My list consisted of fairly basic things to do like travel out of the country (which wasn’t too hard considering I live in Forks, Washington. My family and I just drove over the border!), going to Disneyland with my best friends, and saying goodbye to all my friends and family. I figured I should start with those nearby, so I had a little get together with my friends filled with memories, laughing, and a lot of crying. I even caught some of my tough guy buddies shedding a tear or two. My next stop on my trip of local friends and family was to the LaPush reservation to see Rachel Black who I’d heard was back in town. She and her twin, Rebecca, used to babysit me when I was little. They were my idols and acted like older sisters to me, which was nice considering I had no siblings of my own.

The drive to the reservation was a familiar one because Mom and Dad would drop me off there when I was little and in more recent years, that’s where my friends and I would hang out. I pulled up to the faded red house that hadn’t changed one bit since my last trip there many years ago. I got a little nervous walking up to the door, thinking I should have called before I came. Oh well, too late now, I thought as I rang the bell. Luckily, Rachel was the one who answered.

“Hi Rachel,” I said giving her an impish smile.

“Grace? Is that you?” she asked as she pulled me into a huge hug. “How are you doing? I haven’t seen you in practically forever!”

“Yeah. It’s been too long since we’ve seen each other! I could be better, but at the moment, I guess I’m doing ok,” I confessed.

“What do you mean by that?” Rachel questioned, a puzzled expression settling on her face as she lead me inside to the couch. Well, better to tell her what’s wrong with me and get it over with it, I thought.

“Um, I don’t really know how to put this quite, but I have Leukemia and I’m sorta on a bucket list trip before… er… well you know…”

“Oh, Grace…” she whimpered, dragging me into another hug. Generally, I was a strong person in the sense that I could keep myself together. Like the day when I was diagnosed with Leukemia, I didn’t cry but my mom sure as heck did. All the times when I was little and fell off my bike when Rebecca and Rachel were watching me, I would refuse to cry. Somehow, being here in Rachel’s embrace, my armor cracked and a flood of emotion, that should have shown up sooner, poured out. We must have cried like that for a little while before someone nervously cleared his throat from the kitchen doorway.

Rachel was the one to break the hug, “Oh, uh, hi dad. You remember Grace, right? Rebecca and I used to babysit her.” The man with the russet colored skin and dark eyes, Billy Black, my memory informed me, seemed to cautiously taking in the situation so that he could proceed without another onslaught of emotion.

“Of course I do, she and her friends are around LaPush a lot. Speaking of which, where’ve ya been these past few weeks?” Billy asked, obviously trying to lighten the mood. That brought another wave of hysterics but my wall had been repaired, perhaps from the big melt down, so I smoothed over my face thinking, might as well tell him my problem too, as I began to talk to Billy.

“Well, I’ve kinda been busy lately… lots of things that I needed to finalize before…” I broke, my calm façade faltering slightly when thinking about why I truly had to do this. I continued, my words coming in a rush, “I have Leukemia and I’ve only got a year to make things right with everyone, so I’m trying to reconnect with everyone I can to say… goodbye.” I hadn’t noticed, because I had closed my eyes sometime while I had spoke, but Billy had wheeled himself next to me, a sincerely sorry look on his face.

“I’m so sorry”

“Thanks, but I’m making the best out of a bad situation. Without contracting this, I wouldn’t have gone out of my way to do things like go to Disneyland or go out of the country or even meet up with old friends and family. It brought me back in touch with Rachel and I’m really glad for that,” I admitted. It was totally true though, because over time, I’d forgotten how much I’d loved Rachel. Without my “big sister(s)”, there was a hole in my life, as cheesy as it may sound.

So the three of us talked and caught up with each other for a while. Rachel was done with college and she had a boyfriend named Paul, but how she referred to him, it seemed like he would be a fiancée soon enough, and I insisted I meet him. Billy hadn’t been up to much, “same old, same old,” as he’d said. I updated the two of them on my life up until the diagnosis. I told them about how I was starting sophomore year of high school and how I was super excited that I’d gotten my drivers license already since my birthday was in late August.

Before long, it started to get dark out and I suggested that I should probably start heading home.

“Why don’t you stay for dinner, Grace,” Billy insisted. “We’re having pizza and some of the others from the reservation are going to be coming over soon too.”

“Oh, thanks, but I don’t want to intrude on anything…” I really didn’t want to go, but I didn’t want to have to confront so many people I may or may not remember.

“Don’t worry about that,” Billy assured me, “I’m sure everyone will love seeing you again. It’s been so long!”

“And Paul will be there so you’ll get to meet my boyfriend!” Rachel added, excitement colored her tone.

“Awesome! I’d love to stay but could I borrow your phone though, just to call my mom and make sure she’s okay too?” I asked. Rachel handed me the phone and my mom answered on the second ring. She was totally cool about me eating at the Blacks’ house and asked that I say hi to everyone for her. After hanging up the phone, I something urgent popped into my head that I had to tell Billy and Rachel.

“Would you both do me a favor and not tell anyone about my… condition?”