People only manage to grasp the fact that time isn’t something on our side when theirs is running out. Whilst everyone is bustling around, turning their heads at bullying or street crime, there is always going to be someone in the world that is dying; someone is always going to be fighting against the clock. It could be your neighbor, the man you see walking the dog every morning. It could be your best friend or the boy you like. Battles aren’t just for the field or really bad history books; everyone battles something every day, conquers and then prevails. I, on the other hand, fail to conquer anything, for I am a walking time bomb, and today is my time to explode.

At five foot five, my sixteen year old self is pretty average. I’m the sort of girl you’d maybe glance over at a store or accidently wave to from thinking I was someone else. My monochrome attire was lifeless, much like my dying self. I wasn’t scared of dying; in fact, I didn’t want to, I was just a terminally ill cancer patient with numbered days and no hair.

The park was a vast opening of nothing. There was nobody here; there was nothing but a giant field. I had sat on the lone swing, my thoughts swimming about the failed attempt of creating a park out of a battered chunk of wood and a dodgy slide. I was getting far too big to sit on this swing, and I supposed it didn’t matter anyway; kids would come here and draw disgusting images onto the bark or chip away at the wood so that when anybody did sit on it, the swing would be lopsided.

I don’t know if this was just me, but I could never comprehend why people felt the need to sit and vandalize everything. The world wasn’t perfect - that was granted, but it wasn’t so bad. In fact, if you wanted to believe that this misshaped swing was beautiful then you could. After all, everyone looks at the world with a fresh pair of eyes. The world to me was a concoction of distrusted people and broken hearts. Everywhere I looked I saw pain.

My doctor once asked me on a scale of one to ten how much pain was I in. I had said a five, not because it wasn’t true – the pain had dulled to a point where I didn’t feel as if I was being choked by air, but because I had no idea how I was supposed to rate pain to begin with. Pain is different for everyone. Arguably, someone could say that on one of my bad days, my pain couldn’t justify their pain of a broken heart. And instead of getting angry, I wouldn’t argue back, I had never experienced a broken heart so my point could be deemed as invalid. You can’t justify someone’s pain. We all feel it, some more than others, but it’s there.

“Honey,”

I close the door from my thoughts and stare up at my mum. She looks tired – her eyes are drawn and her nose is red from all the crying she has been doing. I shift in my hospital bed; the cannula attached to my hand catches my attention out of the corner of my eye. I blink rapidly, the lighting in the hospital temporarily blinding me.

“Hmm,”

“Ethan is here to see you.” I nod because I don’t think I can manage to speak. Mum leaves the room, her hands fiddling with her hair. She does that when she’s nervous. I feel bad because I know I’m the reason why. She has given up these last three years for me and my cancer. She kept telling me it was because she wanted to preserve every moment she had with me, but all the while she would go to bed sobbing into her pillow, shutting the door as if I couldn’t hear.

Ethan walks in moments later, my boyfriend’s hair is shabby from the amount of hand running he has done through it. He sits down on the chair beside my bed and takes my other hand.

“Hey you,” he says.

“Hello.” I manage to croak out.

He squeezes my hand, his fingers are rough from helping out at the building site and he smiles. “Where did you go last night?”

I am surprised he noticed. I had sneaked out one last time just to breathe. People always say that you know when you’re going to go, when you can’t fight anymore. I knew today was my time so I left and returned this morning with small satisfaction.  I shift again, my back aching from the pain. “The park,”

“Why do you love it there so much?” he asks, rubbing his thumb over the top of my hand.

“Because it’s ugly to the naked eye,” I cough out; my voice is thick as if something is trapping my throat.

“And your eyes are fully clothed?”

“Yeah, a raincoat and all,”

Ethan laughs; the sound reminds me of the bubbles from a fizzy drink can. It’s sweet to hear and tickles your insides. “I love you Sienna, you do know that right?”

“And I love you too.”

I close my eyes, my feelings consuming me like a black hole. I’m happy and I suppose that was a good way to die. I was sixteen, and although I hadn’t dipped my toes into everything life had to offer, I had experienced some of the beauties that life did have to offer. I fell in love, I had a family and I know that the world is a place filled with such magnificent things that are utterly breath taking.

It was coming to the end, and maybe I was looking for it all along. It was now my time to aboard the train to a different journey. I squeeze Ethan’s hand one more time, and I can hear the monitor going off, but I’m ready. I can feel myself slipping away.

I’m free.