★ There’s a girl on a windowsill, looking out at the sparkling lights of the city beyond her. The city that she’ll never get to fully explore, the city that she’ll never get to grow up in. Yet, somewhere in her fully white room with the med cart and the hospital bed, there’s an ounce of hope. She just heard that there might be a new treatment, and that she could be out of the hospital if it works.

☆ There’s another girl on a windowsill, looking out at the buildings below her. Everything looks so small from where she is, and the usually exciting city is dull and boring. She’s stalling, and not because she’s afraid, but because she wants to take in the insignificance of it all. The city she was born to is also home to millions of other people. The city was not made for her or made for who she would become, and she began to climb the staircase up another level. 

★ The other girl still remains on the windowsill. The city that never sleeps is asleep at last, but she certainly isn’t. She doesn’t usually stay up late, but there’s something so calming about being alone with her thoughts that she almost forgets it’s four in the morning. She doesn’t think only bad things, like most people would expect her to. She thinks about her past, since it’s more uplifting than her present. 

☆ The girl on the staircase climbs the final step onto the roof. She’s thirty-nine stories up, and everything has become even smaller to her. She goes to the edge and looks down. One step and it would all be over, one step and she’d never see this city again. 

★ The girl on the windowsill has to go to bed, but she decides to keep her eyes open a bit longer. Most people would expect her to be jealous of the other people that get to live their lives, with no fear of tomorrow and friends that come for free. But she isn’t jealous, she’s just excited. One day, she’s going to be like them. With her new treatment and her survival rates going up, she’s going to be like them. 

☆ The girl on the roof is cold and she needs to make up her mind quickly. She’s been on this roof many many times, testing her limits with death. One step too far and it’s all over, and one step back inside and it will all be okay. The thought that crosses her mind is if she even wants it to be okay. 

★ The girl on the windowsill is awake and restless still. It’s been hours, but what does it really matter? Live for today if you might not remember tomorrow. 

☆ The girl on the roof dangles one foot over the edge. She slips and for a split second, she thinks it’s the end. But she can’t go out like that, unsure of what she wants to do. She’s never been more scared as she shakily gets to her feet and wipes off the snowflakes lining her coat. Why is she so scared of what she wants? 

★ The girl in the windowsill remembers her best friend from middle school, who she lost touch with long ago. No one wants to be friends with the sick girl, especially when a future with her isn’t promised. Maybe, though, with this new treatment, it will be. She’s getting too hopeful, but she really thinks this is the one. She takes her phone out of her pocket to see if she still has her old friend’s number saved, but she searches her contacts and she does not. 

☆ The girl on the roof steps back, more carefully this time. She’ll try again tomorrow. 

Two months later

★ She is no longer the girl in the windowsill. Her title has changed to the girl confined in her hospital bed. Her treatment didn’t work, and everything is getting so much worse again. All her hope is gone and the blinds are closed, hiding the city that previously stood beside her, the city that she may never get the chance to reach again.

☆ The girl on the roof is still up there every night, afraid to face what comes to her. She dropped her therapy appointments and reset her sobriety trackers, and she gets closer to the edge every single day. 

A week later 

★ From the girl in the windowsill to the girl in the hospital bed, her title has changed a million times. Yet she never expected it to so abruptly become the girl in the casket. 

☆ She’s on the roof when she gets the email. A friend of hers from middle school who she hasn’t talked to in years has passed away. She swipes away the notification, and heads back downstairs. There’s nothing wrong with attending a funeral if you weren’t close with that person, right? If you didn’t drop them because you couldn’t watch another person leave you, and if they didn’t cuss you out for trying to take your own life when you had a perfect one all set up for you. 

☆ Something in her changes at the funeral that day, though. The girl’s father reads aloud something his daughter once said to him. “Live for today if you might not remember tomorrow.” 

☆ At the end of the service, she’s handed a printed out copy of the girl’s bucket list. Everything on it is so normal for a person who takes everything for granted, she realizes. So maybe she can live until she accomplishes what a sick girl couldn’t. Maybe she’ll live for today and tomorrow, too.