A small fragile girl was lying in the bed, face pale, limbs weak. She looked like a broken doll, her hair hadn’t seen a comb for months, and her lips were so bright against the pale face that you would have thought they were painted with her own blood. The only sounds were her shallow breathing and the constant hum of the machines keeping her alive. If you watched her closely, you could see the slight flutter of an eye and the slow movement of her chest. The only signs that she was, truly still among the living. Her mother paced outside, the father was nowhere to be found and a young boy sat waiting by her bedside.
He was hoping with all his heart that she would open her eyes and see his hurt face. His mind was breaking by the thought of her dying, surely she wouldn’t leave him in this state! The boy held one of her slender hands in his, in his other a strand of her golden hair, he was twirling it around his fingers. He couldn’t help thinking about the lake that past summer. Had she felt what was clearly written on his face? It didn’t feel the same. Her face wasn’t bright with sun, her eyes alive with joy, her hair curly from sun and water washing it for her. Her skin was brighter then, her hair softer, and her lips sweater. That was before she got sick, before things fell apart, when they lived their lives by water and sun alone.
It feels to him like she was never sick, never in pain, and always happy. Now he sees that she lied, maybe to protect him, or because she was scared, it didn’t matter now. This summer she will die, and he will be by her side the entire time. When she’s gone he’ll do all the things she wanted, finish school, get a good job, live by the water, climb a mountain, maybe even jump out of an airplane. There’s only one thing he won’t do, find a loving family. Now, this boy is halfway through high school, some say he has no idea what he wants, but he knows, he sees, he sees it in her face now. He sees like she never could.
Sixteen is the perfect age for first love. Eyes are born anew to the beauties that were hidden in younger years. An attraction pulls young people together like a magnet. This boy went willingly, listening with everything he had to the pull. He thinks he should have refused, should have fought, it was because of that pull that he is there. He was waiting for death and with that death the destruction of his own heart. Tears streaming down his face from realization, he fell asleep.

A Moment
It was June, a girl and a boy were sitting side by side on a dock by the lake. They were in their swimsuits, water dripping down their backs, with the sun warming their faces. She was beautiful. Fair skin darkened by the sun, her eyes shone with happiness and life, the water turned her hair the red you knew was there but you never saw, and she wore a smile for everyone she encountered.
His hair was grown out long to her liking, and his skin turned a deep gold from hours in the sun. The dripping water going down his back made his muscles look magnified and his skin glisten with light. They were a sight to see, sitting there talking about things only they knew. His hands were twitching to hold hers. His eyes longed for the towel to slip and his lips ached for hers. She never saw these things, only the happy things.
When the boy started to skip rocks she slipped away. He was so concentrated on the precise movements that he didn’t notice. She stood in the woods by the dock and smiled to herself. Five minutes passed before he realized her absence. Laughing softly to herself she watched as he paced back and forth, trying to figure out where she was. The moment he turned away, she stormed down the dock and shoved his tall body into the calm water. He screamed and she clutched at her stomach laughing till she cried. The water quickly turned into a choppy ocean when he flung her small frame into the cool water. There was a moment, a look in their eyes, their laughing, smiling faces, her hands on his chest, and his on her back. As quickly as it begun, it vanished like the ripples of a wave. To his disappointment, and her delight, they swam till night.

He woke up with tears in his eyes. If only that moment lasted longer, maybe she would have trusted him. She didn’t trust anyone then, not during the summer and not in the hospital. The white walls scared her, the smells disgusted her, and the people killed her heart. She was easily affected by the death and tears that happened daily in that place. Soon they reality of her death clung to her heart with nails made of steel. It was something neither one of the children could escape, the certainty of death.
The girl’s lips started to move and the boy grabbed a cup of water, slowly tipping the lifesaving liquid towards her. She drank her fill, sighed, and turned over to sleep some more. While she slept, the boy cried. He cried for her, for summer, and for himself. He didn’t think about her mother, her friends, her father, or her sister. In his world it was just the two of them, a girl and a boy, fighting two different things for one result, life.
A nurse came in and put some medicine in the girl’s IV, checked her vitals, and regretfully reminded the boy he had to leave at eight. When she left he glanced at the clock. He had fifteen minutes till he had to go. She was sleeping so he thought it was safe to leave her with her mother. He told the mother he was leaving, promised to be back at seven thirty sharp, and she promised he’d be the first she called if anything happened. He nodded and slowly swayed down the hallway, his shoulders slumped with despair. Outside he went to his car and had a battle with the lock. Once he sat in the driver’s seat, he put his head on the steering wheel, took a deep breath, and started the car.
Pulling out of the parking lot and onto the road, he turned his attention to driving. He stopped when he was supposed and even went under the speed limit, convinced that something could happen to keep him away from her. He didn’t know where he was going, home was the other way, but he drove. It started to rain as he turned onto a barely used country road. He drove for miles until woods surrounded him on all sides and then pulled to the side. He stepped out of the car and let the spring rain wash out all his sorrows. Standing in the road and the headlights light, he looked up to the sky with a wistful face. Everything rushed to him all at once causing an unhuman scream to rip from his throat. He crashed to the ground, screaming, salty tears and rain water ran down his face, drenching him in his own sorrows.
He had hoped the rain would be like a baptism. He hoped that when he emerged from the water he would be a new man, a man who would survive. Hours passed and he crawled back to his car, oblivious to the water that drenched his seat and body. He soon realized how wrong he was to think the rain could baptize him. Only he could baptize himself from the things that had happened. He shivered from the cold and turned up the heat. Drained from the tears, he quickly fell asleep to the pitter patter of the rain.

The secret language
There were some things they never talked about, school, home, pain, love, and family. They only spoke of happy things, only summer things. They never talked about the night they snuck out to swim, or the waterfall, or even what day they would fish. They never said when, where, or how. They never needed to, they would let their bodies speak for them. The set of his jaw told when it was a fishing day, the longing for the moon in their limbs told them when they would slip away in the night, and the waterfall was only for special days. Days like his first day back, days when a spark of rebellion was in her eye. They would always met up at the same time, without words, without fail.

When he awoke it was morning. He brushed his teeth with a bottle of water and a toothbrush kept in the car and changed is shirt. He thought that the rain had taken care of his shower for him the night before. He took the wheel and headed to the hospital, he headed to her. When he got there he all but ran to the door. He didn’t bother with the nurses, they knew him by now, and went straight to her room. It was eight o’clock and he was hoping with all his heart that he didn’t miss it. He slowly opened the heavy door and walked inside.
She was sitting up, supported by the many pillows in her bed. She still had a broken doll look, but she was awake. Her once bright blue eyes had turned gray from the lack of happiness and her hair was flat and knotted from neglect, but she still looked beautiful to him. He watched her struggle to eat her breakfast and comforted her when she screamed in frustration. He ended up having to feed her because her weak arm couldn’t hold the spoon steady. Halfway through the meal she shoved it away and asked for a story.
Surprised at her request he decided to tell about the sanctuary. She laid back into the pillows and waited with an expected look on her face. He began,

Once upon a time, there was a waterfall,
No one knew about the waterfall. Only one boy and one girl and they called it the Sanctuary. They found it and kept it to theirselfs. They knew why it was there, everyone did, but they were the only ones who knew where it was. The waterfall wasn’t impressive, but it was nice. They could easily climb it in five or six steps for it was only between eight and ten feet tall. It was two levels and kept them hidden from the world, so they were happy. A strong tree’s branches stretched across the pool of water at the bottom of the falls, about four feet above the surface of water. A narrow stream gushed past the narrow passage left by overflow. It was about six feet wide at its widest point and very deep. The water was too fast and too deep everywhere except the pool. Up in their tree they could watch the Egrets eat turtles and see deer prance across a large meadow beyond the grove of trees. They could fish for large carp and bass downstream, camp in their tent, or swim in the cool pool of water. They felt safe in this special place and vowed to keep it special. A place just for the two of them. The nature around them accepted that and pulled them into its heart…

He drifted off into his own head, until she spoke.
“I like that story, where in the world did you come up with it?”
“You mean you don’t remember?”
“Remember what?”
He never got to answer before she drifted back to sleep. When the nurse came in to check her vitals, he asked her about memory loss. If it was a bad sign. The nurse smiled and said not to worry but he could see the glimmer of fear in her eyes. He knew he wasn’t supposed to but he crawled into her bed and held her. He petted her hair and washed it with his tears. He was losing a little more of her every day. If she couldn’t remember the Sanctuary then how long till she forgot him? He fell asleep with her in his arms.
When he woke up he was angry. All he did was cry and sleep. He only ate one meal a day and was going crazy with grief. This was only the second stage of her sickness. The sixth stage was death, he dreaded the third. It was the halfway mark, the no going back mark. How would he handle it? How could he? Stage one was odd pains and blank spots, stage two was memory loss, stage three was sharp random pains, stage four amnesia, stage five coma, and finally stage six, death.

That night she went into stage three.