The Bucket List

a walk down memory lane: part 2

"This was your idea, Kevin?"

"Yeah, it was."

"That seems so...unlike you."

"I really liked her, and I didn't want her to die hating me. I wanted tobe friends at least."

"Die? What do you mean, die?"

"Well, that terminal illness I was talking about," I say, "When I was diagnosed, I was told I had one year left."

"How long has it been?"

"About... Eight months."

"Oh, dear, I'm so sorry."

"It's okay." I say, and Kevin takes my hand under the table and squeezes it.

"So when did all this... Start happening?" Laura asks.

"Well, I started to like him maybe a month or two in. We spent every minute of every day together. And there was this one time when he helped me when I was going through one of my coughing spells and it kind of just showed how caring he was, that's when I really started to feel... feel that way about him." I say, thinking back to the day when he threw me in the pool.

"Okay, Kevin, talk to me." Laura says.

"About what?"

"About this whole relationship thing." One thing that I've never really liked about Laura is that she's very blunt, and is not afraid to ask questions which could lead to making you feel uncomfortable.

"What? No." Kevin says.

"Why not?"

"You're just not the person I want to talk to about this."

"But why?"

"I don't know, okay?" I'm going upstairs. He squeezes my hand before he lets go, sending a shiver up my spine, and he walks away.

"I wonder what's gotten into him." Laura says. "Anyways," she says turning back to me. "Tell me more."

"Well, what do you want to know?" I say, Kevin still in the back of my mind. I hope it doesn't bother him that I'm talking to his mom about this stuff. Obviously, he didn't want to so I hope it's okay that I do.

"I just want to know more about you two. Tell me about your story."

"Well, we started to get closer around March, and he found out about my illness. He was really nice about it and told me that we needed to patch things up because he didn't want me to die still hating each other. We tried our best to make things work and at first, we didn't get along at all. He was very protective and always wanted to make sure I was safe, which was nice but got pretty excessive after a while. We had a huge downfall once when I got mad at him and told him I didn't need his help, and then we came back stronger than before. And the same thing happened again when we started to like each other. I was paranoid all the time back then but somehow it all worked out." I try not to give too many details about Kevin because it doesn't really seem like he wants his mom to know.

"Morgan, your phone is ringing." Kevin says, so I go upstairs to see what's going on. I walk into his room and hear no ringing, and then see my phone sitting on his bed, face up with a completely dark screen.

"My phone isn't ringing." I say.

"I know, Morgan. I'm not stupid."

"What's going on?" I ask, slightly irritated.

"It's hard to explain."

"Well, try. You made quite the scene back there."

"I know, and I'm sorry." He pauses, "It's just... I've never had a good relationship with my mom. She's never been home. I don't want her to know what's going on in my life because it seems like she doesn't even care."