if tomorrow comes.

PAGE ONE

PAGE ONE

MEI - JANUARY 5TH

The mind is like a twenty-four hour convenience store. When people are at a loss of words, they hurry into the store to buy cheap words and fake smiles. Although they know it's wrong to say something that could potentially hurt another, lies and at times, the hurtful truth, comes out. We all have done this in some point in time. Rather it be your best friend, or a person you dislike, we buy the words we force ourself to say, then dispose them right after.

Every once in a while, I get sick of the words: Stay strong, Mei! Mei, are you okay? Do you need any help?

Those three sentences are the only three that reoccurs and is said to me, every single day. It's as if those three statements are on a sale right now when anybody talks to me, and they buy it to say it after, with no meaning. 

Of course I'm okay. If I wasn't, how would I be able to stand strong on my own two feet? Teachers and students must mistaken my cancer for a disability, asking if I need to hear the question again or need help writing down certain words. I thought it was an appreciative gesture to do, but after a while, it became progressively annoying and irritating. Nobody would talk to me in class, with the exception of those three sentences. I was alone.

That's when I thought, maybe it's better if I was alone. If I were to end up breathing my last breath on the hospital bed unexpectedly, nobody would experience the pain of losing someone close to them. I'd hate to be the cause of their pain, even if they caused me pain. Even if they force a smile and say the cheapest of words in front of my face.

So, ultimately, I decided I wouldn't make any friends in my senior year. I'd ditch my old friends without explaining what my intentions were, and I wouldn't associate myself with any other classmates. I'd try my best to not ask any questions and listen intently to understand so I could avoid that. That was my plan, my goal, to not hurt anybody when I'm gone.

In the beginning of the year, I went along with my plan. All of my friends got mad or upset with me, then left me. They didn't know about my cancer, or the previous tumor that was rapidly spreading beneath my tissues and at the shells of my bones. I had no intention of texting it to my friends over the summer and make it this huge thing, posted across social media. It was my and my parents information only.

Yet, keeping it concealed to just my household didn't last very long. As I made my daily trip over to the hospital, they found another tumor, and it was in Stage A2, where the tumor cells are confined within the bone, yet more aggressive then Stage 1. I went through a series of procedures and about 2 to 3 surgeries, specifically a Wide Local Excision, during part of the school year, and since my mom had to contact the school, the school contacted the teachers -- and they weren't exactly quiet with it. The teachers announced what had happened to me in the classrooms, and the next time I went on my phone, which was when I was safely being drove home from the hospital, which was about two months from when I went, my phone blew up with notifications telling me to stay strong and that they hoped I was okay.

I felt gratitude at first, but the further I scrolled down and read the captions, the sadder it made me. More than half of these people didn't even notice me throughout middle school and the three years of high school, yet when something so life-changing and disastrous happened to me, everyone seemed to feel something for me. It's as if cancer was the only way for people to see that I was here, too. I tried making friends before, yet, they always find other people to talk to, and forgot about me.

When I came back to school, a poster was painted and spread across the cafeteria wall. A large crowd of students surrounded me, with smiles I knew was fake. I've smiled too many forced smiles to know that all of theirs came from pity. The sentences they said had an abundance of unsureness behind them, as if they were scared to say it to me.

After that, I distanced myself from everyone. I went along with my plan, and kept my mouth shut. The only time I would talk was at home. Even then, I talked very little and thought a bit too much. I had nobody in my phone contact list with the exception of my parents, and I isolated myself from everyone. At times, I'd lock myself in my room and sit there, thinking, will I live another day? Will the upcoming tumor in my leg, in my bones, spread upwards to my lung? How long is my life expectancy?

It's quite scary, actually. To have your thought process change from which outfit should I wear tonight? to, how much longer do I have to live? I'm a big ball of pessimism.

Everything happens for a reason! It doesn't. Cancer, any type of cancer, doesn't happen because you "deserve it", nobody deserves such a life changing event. It just happens, in the blink of an eye. One day you're living a care free life, and the next you find out you have a large cancerous tumor. It's fascinating how happy you can be one day and so upset and worried the next.

I can't decide if I would want to keep living and worrying throughout the rest of my life, or have my death delivered to me in the easiest way possible — by letting the tumor spreading to my lung and stop visiting the hospital. Is living really beneficial to me anymore?

At least I've lived long enough to see the pretty, white snow. Christmas passed, I got a new phone, and a new phone number. I disconnected my old phone number.

As winter break comes to end, I find myself nervous these days. School is inching on me again, and I'll be faced with too many obstacles to hurdle over.

I've started writing in this diary, since it's the only place I can express my feelings. It's quite old, but that's alright.

Hopefully school won't be too bad.

Wish me luck, diary.

— MEI

this book contains touchy subjects (such as cancer), major and minor character conflict, mild language, mature events, other character relationship, and more. if any of the above makes you feel uncomfortable, please don't read this! if you go on further, it's your responsibility to remember this x

by the way, her 'diary' is you guys!! she's writing to you guys even if she doesn't know you exist, how cool is that?! it's like im writing to my readers, but it's mei writing to my readers x

i love u buddies

p.s. i have done and still currently doing a whole ton of research on the type of cancer mei has. (she has ewing's sarcoma - yes it is extremely rare but that doesn't mean its's impossible to obtain xx) please bare with and notify me if i type in something that normally wouldn't happen in reality! its my goal to make this as realistic as possible! that being said, not everyone at school has a liking towards mei, girl or boy, most teachers either pacify her or treat her as an adult, harry's feelings aren't instant, and mei's character progression is slow and adapting. she will talk more throughout the fanfic, but being realistic, she would need some time to warm up to the changes that is about to happen throughout her life! :)

okok that's it i love you guys <3

- mak(ayla)!