“Ugh.” She huffed. “Fiiiine. Ten minutes it is.”
I never saw a person dress faster than she did. In less than five minutes, she had a hoodie on, her pajamas stayed with the addition of sneakers on her feet.
“That’s how you’re going?” I lifted an eyebrow. This might be the worst idea ever.
“Yeah. What’s wrong with this?” She looked down at her outfit. “It’s not like we’re going to the Ritz. We’re just going to the backyard.”
“You barely have any clothes on.”
“All of them are gonna get soaked, anyway.”
“Soph,” I groaned. “You’ll get sick.”
“And you’ll get gray hair from worrying that much. I’m fine. Can you just move your ass from the bed? Please?”
I grumbled and protested, but I knew that nothing I said would sway her from going out. She bounced on the spot, moving her weight from one leg to the other, smiling the whole time.
I grabbed a hoodie I threw on the chair in the corner of her room and put it on, followed by my sneakers, and before I could even straighten myself up, she was already grabbing my hand and pulling me toward the door.
“Let’s go!”
She ran out, with me right behind her, laughing the entire time. Her mom appeared at the bottom of the staircase, while the two of us ran down like two lunatics, with a confused look on her face.
“Hi, Mom.” Sophie smiled, going straight from the door. “Bye, Mom!” she yelled out as she stepped out, leaving me behind.
I stared at the spot she just vacated, then looked at her mom, looking as confused as she was.
“She seems to be in a good mood,” she murmured, and pointedly looked at me. A flush creeped from my neck, toward my face, and I took a step back, going toward the door.
“Uh—”
“Go.” She waved at me. “Have fun. Just make sure that she doesn’t spend too much time outside. It’s too damn cold and I don’t want her to get sick.”
In translation, she didn’t want to lose her before it was time.
I swallowed down the emotions threatening to come out. None of us ever talked about the end. Even my mom stopped asking me how Sophie was, because every time she did, I ended up in a mood far worse than I was in to begin with.
I simply nodded and turned toward the door, leaving Mrs. Anderson standing there at the bottom of the stairs with the kitchen towel in her hands. These last couple of months were not easy on her, and you wouldn’t be able to see it if you didn’t look closely enough.
For the entire time that Sophie and I knew each other, I never saw Mrs. Anderson wearing an excessive amount of makeup, but as the days and months passed, her makeup use increased, and I could sometimes hear her coming into the room at night to check on Sophie.
They were okay with me staying over—it was either that or I would be sneaking in—and I was immensely thankful for that. But with me staying over, I could see the toll this sickness was taking over the entire family.
People often forgot that it wasn’t just one person suffering when this kind of thing hit. It was entire families, friends, and loved ones. Even the people that weren’t too close to the person in question seemed to be affected by it.
You never knew when it could hit someone close to you. Seeing a young person like Sophie going through this hell was enough for everyone involved to slow down and enjoy life.
We tended to go through life as if we were racing through time, never stopping to look around us. We often forgot about people we cared about, trying to chase our goals and dreams, and we never stopped to look at everything we were leaving in shambles around us.
But when things like this happened, you had to slow down. You suddenly remembered that there was more to life than constantly racing and racing and racing and chasing. There were things a lot more important.
A healthy person had a thousand wishes, while the sick one only had one—to get better.
“Noah!” Sophie yelled for me, and I started moving again from the porch of her house, following her voice.
I found her in the backyard just as I passed between our houses. She stood there like an angel, covered in flickering light from the lamp in the backyard, staring at the sky with her eyes closed and hands spread to the sides.
Her long hair was already getting wet from the onslaught of the rain, as well as the rest of her clothes.
