☆Glory☆

In first grade, before Deathbringer Black came, cancer was my best friend.

Well, maybe best friends don't kill off the other.

And when you live half of your life lying on a hospital bed thinking about death, you don't exactly have a lot of time or opportunities to make friends.

It was just simply one of my traits, if I can call it that. Glory Bright, the girl with leukemia. The girl who misses school because she has to go to the hospital. The girl whose parents abandoned her after hearing the possibility of her disease and who, now, lives with her very rich grandmother.

The girl whose dad died in a car crash.

Complicated? Yes.

Everywhere I went, there were whispers. There were pity. There were curiosity. And I hated it all.

Cancer wasn't a disease I had- it was something had controlled my life. It wasn't simply a trait, it defined me entirely. The people that would have liked me avoided me after hearing about cancer. The people that wouldn't, stayed because it somehow made them better people.

And then, Deathbringer Black came. The boy with black hair and dark, dark eyes. We met in elementary school, when he had recently moved from a city from Minnesota.

At first, I didn't like him. He was too outgoing, too loud and friendly, to match my personality, which was to stay away from everyone because I was simply anti-social.

That was one of the side affects of cancer. That was one of the side affects of dying.

I always sat outside under a pine tree, breathing in, breathing out. And nobody tried to pick up a conversation with me there. So it became something like my spot until I graduated elementary school.

Then I realized something: He kept staring at me. Deathbringer Black. Even at his young age, he knew how to play at life. He excelled it. Within a week, he had a string of girls drooling over him. He had a lot of friends. He was just popular- he was made to be.

So why would he stare at me? There was only one explanation: cancer. At first, I felt insulted because I figured he was just staring at me because maybe he felt sorry for me. Just like everyone else.

But he kept staring and staring and staring until I felt shy. And curious.

After a few days, when I just couldn't take it anymore, I went up to him. I remember that day, I had a ribbon on my hair. And a black dress, as dark as his eyes.

"If you are going to keep staring at me, we might as well be friends," I said shortly, putting my hand out to him, hoping he would accept my friendship and shake it. I stared into his eyes confidently, but to say the truth, I was nervous out of my mind.

He didn't hold back. "Okay."

"Okay."

He grinned. "Okay."

I raised an eyebrow. "Is this it? I never had a friend before," I admitted. "So there's no, like, promising to stay friends forever? Like a vow or anything? This is it?"

Deathbringer shugged. "Nothing is forever. Besides..."

I stared at his hand shaking mine. Suddenly, I felt proud. Nothing was forever, yes, but he was there. Shaking hands with me, Glory Bright, over all the others.

That was when I realized that I was lucky after all. That my life didn't exist just to end.

That was when I became friends with Deathbringer Black.

"Besides what?" I demanded.

Deathbringer leaned in close, whispering in my ear. A secret. A secret for just the two of us, because only two can play this game.

And that whisper was what brought us together into an unbreakable friendship.

"Maybe 'okay' will be our always."

☆