Chapter 5
The morning air cut through my lungs like broken glass, but I forced myself outside anyway. Rocky bounded ahead into the pristine snow, his golden fur bright against the white expanse. He didn't know this was our last lesson.
I pulled the frisbee from my jacket pocket.
"Come here, boy," I called softly.
Rocky trotted back, tail wagging, eyes bright with anticipation. He'd been my constant companion for three years, the only family member who never asked me to be less so someone else could be more.
I knelt in the snow, ignoring the way the cold seeped through my jeans. My bones ached constantly now—the cancer eating away at everything solid inside me. But this mattered more than pain.
"We're going to play a different game today," I told him, scratching behind his ears. "You need to learn something important."
I stood and walked twenty feet away, then turned to face him. Rocky sat perfectly, alert and ready. Such a good boy. Too good.
"Go!" I shouted, hurling the frisbee as hard as I could.
Rocky exploded forward, powerful legs churning through the snow. He caught the frisbee mid-leap, a perfect grab that would have made me cheer six months ago.
But when he turned to bring it back, I was already walking away.
"Don't look back, Rocky," I called over my shoulder, my voice catching. "Go! Keep going!"
He stopped, confused. The frisbee dropped from his mouth into the snow.
I forced myself to keep walking, even as I heard his questioning whine behind me. "Don't look back, baby. Please don't look back."
When I finally turned around, he was still standing there, frisbee at his feet, watching me with those liquid brown eyes that saw straight through to my soul.
My heart broke a little more.
We did it again. And again. Each time, I threw the frisbee further. Each time, I walked away faster. Each time, Rocky brought it back and waited for me to return.
On the seventh try, something shifted.
I threw the frisbee toward the tree line, and Rocky took off after it with his usual enthusiasm. But when he caught it, instead of turning back immediately, he paused. Looked at the frisbee. Looked at me in the distance.
Then he dropped it and kept running.
"Good boy," I whispered, tears freezing on my cheeks. "Good boy, Rocky. Don't look back."
He disappeared into the forest without a backward glance.
I sank to my knees in the snow and finally let myself cry.
In the afternoon, the pain hit while I was making coffee, a lightning bolt of agony that shot through my spine and dropped me to the kitchen floor. The mug shattered, sending ceramic shards across the worn linoleum.
"Emma!" Sophie's voice, sharp with panic. She was beside me in seconds, her hands gentle but urgent. "What's happening?"
"It's getting worse," I gasped between waves of pain. "The medication isn't—"
Another surge hit, and I bit my lip hard enough to taste blood. The doctors had warned me this would happen. Stage four bone cancer doesn't negotiate. It takes everything, slowly, deliberately, until there's nothing left but agony.
Sophie helped me to the couch, her face tight with controlled fear. She'd been watching me deteriorate for two weeks now, trying to pretend everything was normal. Trying to pretend I wasn't dying right in front of her.
"I can drive you to Anchorage," she said, reaching for her keys. "There's a hospital—"
"No." The word came out harder than intended. "Sophie, no. We talked about this."
"That was before—" She gestured helplessly at my current state. "Before it got this bad."
I tried to sit up straighter, but my body rebelled. Everything hurt now—not just the cancer sites, but places that shouldn't hurt. My fingernails. My hair follicles. Even my eyelids felt bruised.
"Before what?" I asked gently. "Before the inevitable became undeniable?"
Sophie's face crumpled. "I can't just watch you—"
"Yes, you can," I interrupted. "Because you're the only person who's ever seen me as I am instead of what I could give them. And right now, what I need is to finish this my way."
She wiped her eyes with the back of her hand, leaving a streak of dirt across her cheek. "What do you need?"
"Help me record something."
Sophie set up her camera on the kitchen table while I tried to make myself look presentable. It was a losing battle—the cancer had carved twenty pounds from my frame, leaving my clothes hanging loose and my cheekbones sharp enough to cut glass.
But my eyes were clear. For the first time in years, my eyes were completely clear.
"Ready?" Sophie asked, her finger hovering over the record button.
I nodded.
The red light blinked on, and suddenly I was talking to ghosts.
"Hi, Mom." My voice was steadier than I expected. "I know you're probably angry with me for disappearing. For canceling the wedding. For making a scene."
I paused, gathering my thoughts. In the camera's reflection, I could see Sophie crying silently behind the lens.
"I want you to know that I don't hate you. I really don't. I just wish you could have seen me. Not Emma the donor, or Emma the strong one, or Emma who doesn't need as much attention. Just... me."
The words came easier now, like a dam finally breaking.
"I wish you could have loved me the way I was instead of the way I tried to be for you."
I stopped recording and took a shaky breath.
"Next," I whispered.
Sophie reset the camera.
"Ryan." His name tasted bitter on my tongue. "You were my hero once. When we were little, before Dad died and Mom remarried, you used to tell me stories. Make up adventures where we were both the heroes, where we saved each other."
My voice broke slightly. "I kept waiting for you to save me from them. But you chose her side instead. You chose their version of peace over my truth."
I touched my cheek, remembering the sting of his palm.
"I hope you find peace with that choice. I really do."
Another reset.
"Ethan." The hardest name to say. "I loved you. I loved the boy who kissed me under the library eaves and promised we'd travel the world together. I loved the man who said he wanted to build a life with me."
My hands folded in my lap, fingers interlaced to stop their shaking.
"But she needed you more. She always needs everyone more. And you were right to choose her—she'll never be strong enough to stand on her own. I was."
I looked directly into the camera, hoping somehow he'd see the truth in my eyes.
"I understand why you did it. That doesn't mean it didn't destroy me."
One more reset. This one was the hardest.
"Sienna." I almost stopped there, but forced myself to continue. "Congratulations. You won. You got the kidney, the mother, the brother, the fiancé. You got everyone to choose you."
The words tasted like poison, but I needed to say them.
"I hope it was worth it. I hope all that love you demanded so desperately actually fills the hole inside you. I hope you never have to feel invisible the way you made me feel every day of our lives."
I paused, then added quietly: "But I don't think it will. Because love taken isn't love given. And you'll spend your whole life wondering if they actually chose you, or if they just ran out of alternatives."
I signaled to Sophie to stop recording.
The kitchen fell silent except for the tick of the old clock on the wall and the distant sound of wind through the pine trees.
"One more thing," I told her.
I wrote the letter by hand on Sophie's cream-colored stationary, my fingers cramping around the pen. The handwriting got shakier as I went, but the words stayed clear.
Dear Sophie,
I'm sorry I'm doing this to you. But I need you to understand—this isn't giving up. This is taking control.
They took my kidney. My fiancé. My family's love. But they can't take my ending.
I choose the Northern Lights. I choose the wilderness. I choose peace.
When they find out I'm gone, they'll try to make this about them. They'll say I was always dramatic, always too sensitive, always asking for too much attention. They'll make it a tragedy they survived instead of a choice I made.
Don't let them.
This isn't their story anymore. It's mine. And for the first time in my life, I get to write the ending.
Thank you.
All my love,
Emma
P.S. - Rocky learned not to look back. He'll be okay. We both will.
I folded the letter carefully and left it on the kitchen table where Sophie would find it in the morning.
Outside, the aurora borealis began its nightly dance across the star-drunk sky, painting the snow in shades of green and gold and impossible hope.
I watched from the window, finally free.
Tomorrow, I would walk into that light and never look back.
