Right before I died, my parents sat down and did the math with me. They told me that in this life, they had never mistreated me. Whatever other kids had, I had too. "But, we just don't have that kind of money anymore," my mother said. "Your mom and I are just normal people. The doctor said your leukemia is incurable. Even if we go bankrupt trying to save you..." my dad trailed off. "Not to mention we still have to put your brother through college and help him with a down payment for a house. If he doesn't have a house, who would want to marry him?" "Lily, let's stop the treatments. Okay?" My mother’s voice trembled as she said it. She framed it as a question, but she had already made the decision. My father stood beside her, offering his own twisted comfort: "You want Ethan to have a good life too, right?" After they decided to give up on my treatment, they had the doctors pull my IVs and take me off life support. My father stood to the side, crying. My mother had tears in her eyes, but she stood rigidly, saying nothing. They had my Uncle David lift me up and place me in a wheelchair. She wouldn't even touch me. As they rolled me to the hospital entrance, she looked at my uncle and said, "I'm leaving her in your hands." Uncle David nodded, remaining silent. I looked back at her through blurry, tear-filled eyes. "Mom, aren't we going home?" I didn't realize it then, but the moment they decided to give up on me, I no longer had a home. They didn't take me home. On the drive with my uncle, he told me, "Your brother is about to take his final exams and apply for colleges. Being at home would distract him." "You wouldn't want your parents and your brother to have to watch you looking like death every single day, right?" Tears streamed down my face, but I nodded. "Then where am I going?" Where was I supposed to go? Uncle David didn't answer. He just drove in silence for a very long time. Three hours later, he brought me to a tiny, rundown cabin. It was out in the countryside, surrounded by nothing but empty fields. The cabin stood there, completely isolated from the rest of the world. He locked me inside and came by once a day to drop off food. Laying there, staring at the walls of that tiny, ten-by-ten room, it suddenly hit me: I had already been locked inside my tomb. What was Ethan doing? Was he doing his homework? Did Mom make him her special chicken noodle soup? If I were home, Ethan would always sneak two chicken wings into my bowl, and then eat the drumsticks himself. But honestly, just having the wings was enough to make me happy. Thinking about that, I closed my eyes. I could almost see Ethan smiling at me. I could see him pulling me onto the couch to watch cartoons. I could hear him say, "Don't be scared. Your big brother is right here." And then, I never woke up again. When I regained consciousness, I was no longer in that terrifying, suffocating little cabin. I was home. Afternoon sunlight spilled across the living room. My mother was talking to Uncle David. My uncle’s expression was heavy, his eyes rimmed with red. "She passed in the night. I only found out this morning. She went peacefully, no pain. I don't know if she was having a good dream, but she still had a smile on her face..." As he spoke, tears began to slide down my uncle’s cheeks, hitting the floor. My mother didn't say a word. She sat quietly, her face devoid of any visible emotion. She simply stared blankly at the small box of my belongings that my uncle had brought back. "And the arrangements?" my uncle asked. "Cremate her," she said coldly. "Leave the ashes there." Uncle David nodded. Right then, Ethan walked through the front door. He was spinning a basketball on his finger. Before he even fully stepped inside, he called out, "Mom, is Uncle David here? I saw his truck outside." A momentary flash of panic crossed my mother and uncle's faces. Ethan walked in, looking around the living room before heading straight toward my bedroom. When he didn't find me, he looked at my uncle, confused. "Uncle Dave, didn't Lily come back with you? Mom said she went to the countryside to hang out with you for a few days. Where is she?" My mother discreetly pinched my uncle’s arm. Uncle David quickly lied, "Oh, Lily is with... your Grandma. She said she wants to stay there until after summer break." It turned out, Ethan had no idea how sick I really was. He only knew I had been running a lot of fevers, and that Mom had taken me to the doctor. Ethan frowned. "Summer break is still two months away. She’s not coming back? She’s just going to play out there?" My mom walked over and took his backpack and basketball. "Oh, you know your sister isn't cut out for studying anyway. Let her play. Don't worry about her." Ethan looked annoyed. "Who said that? Lily is really smart. Ever since I started supervising her homework, she jumped up ten spots in her class rankings. I need to keep keeping an eye on her." He turned to my uncle. "Uncle Dave, bring Lily back tomorrow." My uncle remained completely silent. Before his eyes could turn red again, he turned and walked out the door. My mom walked him out. In the hallway, she whispered, "Don't tell Mom. She loves Lily the most. She won't be able to handle it." Uncle David didn't say anything. He just looked at her. "Sarah, do you even have a heart? Does this really not hurt you at all?" My mother’s face remained an impenetrable mask. After a long pause, she simply said, "The living still have to live." Ethan was preparing for his final exams. His workload was massive. But instead of rushing to do his practice tests, he walked over to my desk. He looked at the messy piles of notebooks I had left behind and shook his head with a fond sigh. He started organizing them. Suddenly, he picked up my history workbook. He opened it and saw that I had drawn a pair of roller skates on Abraham Lincoln so he looked like he was zooming away. Ethan laughed out loud. He picked up a pencil and scribbled in the margin: You need to focus on your studies, you little brat. He neatly stacked all my workbooks. Then, he opened my planner and wrote out a detailed study schedule for me. He carefully calculated how many vocabulary words I could memorize each day, mapped out my reading assignments, and wrote it all down. At the bottom, he added a little note in parentheses: (If you can't finish it all, don't force yourself. As long as you're a little better than yesterday, that's enough.) After finishing my study plan, he stretched his arms over his head. Then, as if remembering something else, he picked up the pencil again. At the very bottom of the schedule, he wrote one last sentence. Lily, you study hard for your own sake. I just want the best for you. He smiled gently as he wrote it, probably imagining how motivated I would be when I finally saw the note. My mother was cooking in the kitchen. When I was little, I loved hanging out in the kitchen with her. Whenever she cooked, I’d act as her little assistant, passing her ingredients and utensils. I always looked so serious doing it. I liked to pretend the kitchen was an operating room. Mom was the lead surgeon, and I was the trusty scrub nurse handing her the scalpels. Sometimes, I’d even take a paper towel and dab the sweat off her forehead, just like the nurses did on TV. It always made her laugh. She’d look at me with such affection and say, "Alright, Nurse Lily, hand the doctor an egg." Day after day, she had grown completely used to the fact that the kitchen belonged to the two of us. Cooking wasn't a lonely, tedious chore when I was there. People always say that when someone dies, it doesn't really hit you right away. When exactly do you realize that a person is truly gone forever? Usually, it happens like this— "Grab me two tomatoes." My mother scrambled the eggs, and without thinking, tossed them into the hot pan to fry. Once they were done, she scooped them onto a plate, turned around, picked up her knife, and reached her hand out behind her, waiting for me to hand her the tomatoes. Suddenly, her hand froze in mid-air. She looked up. The kitchen was completely empty. She was entirely alone. The whole house felt suffocatingly quiet. She stood frozen in the silence. Suddenly, tears welled up in her eyes, brimming over her lashes. She clenched her fists, violently choking back her sobs, desperately trying to suppress the wave of emotion. She tried her hardest to pretend nothing was wrong, letting the tears fall uncontrollably down her cheeks while maintaining a cold, wide-eyed stare. She opened the fridge, grabbed the tomatoes herself, and looked down at the cutting board to slice them. And then, she suddenly remembered. She had never, not once, asked while cooking: "Lily, what do you want to eat today?" She only ever asked Ethan. Ethan would always just say, "Whatever." And I would lean against her arm and say sweetly, "Whatever Mom makes is my favorite!" Uncle David went back to the countryside to handle my affairs. He took me to the crematorium, and then carried my ashes back to that tiny cabin, all alone. It was nighttime when he arrived. Everything was pitch black. He walked into the cabin. There were no lights. A memory flashed in his mind—the image of me lying there in the dark, clinging to my last breaths, waiting to die. I always lay facing the wall, my back to the door. He set my urn down and went to fold up the blankets I had used. Then, illuminated by the moonlight streaming through the single window, he saw the wall I had stared at every day. There, etched into the drywall, was my timeline. I had used a small pebble to scratch tally marks into the wall. Above the marks, I had written a messy, crooked sentence. When I finish the last tally, Mom will come take me home. The final tally mark was missing its very last stroke. I had died that night. Uncle David froze. His brow furrowed in deep agony. He grabbed the blankets, turned around, and left. When he got back to his house, Grandma Jenkins was sitting in the yard under the porch light. She had her reading glasses on, squinting furiously at her old, brick-like flip phone. She looked incredibly angry. I knew exactly why she was angry. I used to call her every other day just to chat. Once, I waited two days to call, and she got so mad. She claimed I hadn't called her in half a month. I laughed and said, "It hasn't been half a month! It's only been two days!" She scoffed proudly. "You think two days is acceptable?! Why haven't you talked to your grandma in two days? If you don't want to call, then just don't call ever again! Just pretend I'm dead!" Her dramatic, prideful act always made me laugh uncontrollably, and I’d spend the next ten minutes gently coaxing her. I promised I would call her every single alternate day. Right now, she was gripping that flip phone, her face tight with stubborn anger, refusing to go to bed. The neighbor lady saw my uncle walk up and said, "Oh, thank God you're back. Your mother has been wandering around with that phone for days, asking everyone if it's broken or if she forgot to pay the bill. Please check it for her." Uncle David knew exactly why Grandma was acting like this. He walked over, gently took the phone from her hands, and tried to help her inside. Grandma resisted. "Give me my phone back." "Why do you need the phone?" Uncle David said, trying to mask his emotions. "Go to sleep." "What if Lily calls me? What if I miss it? Give it back." Uncle David stood in silence, refusing to hand it over. After a long pause, he finally offered a comforting lie. "Lily and Ethan have their final exams coming up. They’re studying day and night. She just doesn't have time." Grandma nodded in immediate understanding. "I know, I know. They have their finals. But Lily wouldn't forget me. Lily isn't heartless like the rest of you. She doesn't get busy and just forget I exist. She's closest to me." Stubbornly, she snatched the phone back from my uncle's hand. She sat on the edge of her bed, gripping it tightly, staring at the blank screen. Uncle David’s eyes grew red again. His lips parted, but the words wouldn't come out. It looked like he wanted to just rip the band-aid off and tell her that Lily was never going to call again. But he couldn't do it. He couldn't break her heart. He rubbed his eyes and said, "I saw Lily today." Grandma’s eyes lit up. She leaned forward eagerly. "Really? You went to their house today?" Uncle David nodded. "Yeah. Lily said her grades used to be bad and she knew it worried you. So she promised she’s going to score a perfect 100 on her finals to show you." Grandma smiled, nodding her head in pure joy. "Good, good, good. If she's working that hard, I wouldn't even mind if she didn't call me for a whole month." But then she immediately backtracked. "No, a month is still too long." Then, remembering something, she beamed happily. "Tomorrow is Sunday. She’ll definitely FaceTime me tomorrow." Satisfied, she lay down, pulled the covers up, and tucked her precious flip phone safely under her pillow. She closed her eyes, already plotting how she was going to playfully scold me tomorrow for not calling her for five whole days. Thinking about it, she drifted off to sleep with a smile on her face. My dad worked very late. By the time he got back to our neighborhood, it was already midnight. The streets were empty. A small pack of stray dogs was roaming around, digging through the trash. One of the dogs stopped and stared at the tall, exhausted silhouette walking through the darkness. The dog stood there, watching him for a long time. My dad recognized him. His name was Shadow. I was the one who named him. When Shadow was a puppy, he almost died. He was the runt of the litter. When it was time to eat, the other puppies aggressively pushed him out of the way to get to their mother's milk. He was kicked to the side, and even the mother dog rejected him. They say animals instinctively reject weak offspring. They think weak pups can't survive, so they choose to give their limited resources to the stronger ones. That day, I was walking back from picking up a package with my dad when I found Shadow in the bushes. His mother was right there, but she completely ignored him. I couldn't bear it. I tugged on my dad’s sleeve. "Dad, can we take him home?" My dad glanced at the puppy and frowned. "No. Your brother needs to study. We can't have a noisy dog in the house." I listened to him. I didn't bring him inside our apartment. Instead, I went down to the basement of our building and used cardboard boxes to build Shadow a little shelter. I lined it with an old blanket I didn't use anymore, bought him goat's milk, and set up a small heat lamp to keep him warm. I hid him in a quiet corner and fed him every single day. I researched everything about taking care of puppies and found out he needed his shots. I carried him to a nearby clinic that offered free vaccines for strays. The vet told me Shadow had congenital defects and had been abandoned by his mother. He said Shadow probably wouldn't live long enough to even need his vaccines. Holding Shadow, I cried my eyes out. But Shadow seemed to sense my sadness. He licked my face, his innocent eyes full of concern and confusion. He didn't understand why I was crying, but I knew what he was doing. He was trying to comfort me. I shook my head, looked him dead in the eyes, and told him with absolute certainty: "Shadow, listen to me. You can do this. You have to stay alive for me." Against all odds, Shadow actually lived long enough to get his shots. The vet smiled warmly when I brought him back in. He patted my head, and then patted Shadow’s. With kind, glowing eyes, he said, "Love always creates miracles." As time went on, Shadow grew up. He became the undisputed king of the neighborhood strays. He was a fierce fighter and bowed down to no one—but the moment he saw me, his tail would wag so hard his whole body shook. Right now, Shadow stood in the distance, watching my father. He slowly approached, sniffing my dad’s shoes and ankles, desperately trying to find my scent. But my dad was exhausted and impatient. He kicked Shadow away. But Shadow refused to give up. He ran off into the dark, and a few minutes later, he came running back. In his mouth, he was carrying a pink, dirt-stained blanket. He chased after my dad. Disgusted by the dirty stray, my dad was about to kick him again when his eyes suddenly caught sight of the faded Hello Kitty print on the blanket. He froze. It was the blanket he had bought for me. When I was in kindergarten, I treated that blanket like a treasure. I couldn't fall asleep unless I was holding it. It was precious to me because I had begged him for months before he finally agreed to buy it. My dad stared at it, completely shell-shocked. He started chasing Shadow. "Why do you have that blanket?! Give it here!" Shadow grabbed the blanket and bolted. My dad chased him through the dark. He ran and ran, until he tripped and fell hard onto the pavement. And then, he finally broke down crying. He clenched his fists, pounding them against the asphalt, weeping silently into the night. A ragged, agonizing sound tore from his throat, but he couldn't bring himself to scream my name. Shadow took the blanket back to his little cardboard shelter. He curled up in his dark corner, wrapping the pink blanket tightly around himself. He didn't sleep. He just stared out into the pitch-black night, his dark eyes filled with thoughts I couldn't comprehend. Maybe he was wondering where I went. Maybe he was wondering if I was ever coming back. Wondering when we would see each other again. When he could run in circles around me, wagging his tail, so happy he wouldn't even know what sound to make to tell me— "It's been so long." My father picked himself up off the pavement, brushed the dirt off his pants, and forced his emotions back down. He walked into the apartment. As soon as he took his shoes off, his eyes landed on the little snack cabinet I had built for him out of cardboard boxes. It was fully stocked with all the snacks I had carefully prepared for him. He always worked so late. He would come home starving, and over the years, he had developed stomach ulcers from the hunger. Because he was always too tired to cook a real meal at midnight, I started preparing a stash of snacks for him. Stuck to the boxes were sticky notes I had written, letting him know which flavors were in which bins. He reached out, his fingers tracing the little hearts and cartoon faces I had drawn on the notes. He grabbed a bag of chips, sat heavily on the couch, and numbly opened it, stuffing a handful into his mouth. A moment later, my mother walked out of the bedroom. He didn't turn around. His voice was raw. "Honey, what if we just..." Before he could finish his sentence and say we should continue my treatments, my mother cut him off. "She's dead."
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