One Last Breath

Noah

I had never been a very heavy sleeper, or one that slept peacefully during the entire night. Small noises, like loud cars passing by my building, could wake me up easily and I always found myself shifting my position in bed every couple hours. It was good enough for me to feel refreshed after work, but not that fulfilled feeling when you get hours of R.E.M sleep.

In Skylar's little summer home, however, that ideal of sleeping flew out the window. There was something relaxing about the way that this house held itself, like it was just made for sleeping in late and just lazing around. I think I might have slept longer if it had not been for the hand that was brushing their fingers through my hair gently. I sighed and turned to the person, not really wanting to move from this spot.

"Isn't the doctor supposed to wake up before the patient?" Skylar's familiar voice sung over me, and I could hear the humor in the words as she spoke them.

Sleepily, I opened my eyes slowly, making sure that I didn't stare directly into the light that was shining into my room, and looked at the girl above me. The morning sunlight was behind her, giving her a gorgeous halo effect, and I couldn't help but grin softly at her.

"What?" she asked when I just kept smiling at her.

I leaned up and pecked her lips for a quick second before replying, "You look like an angel."

Her cheeks turned pink for a moment before she rolled those blue eyes at me and got up, standing over me and no longer blocking the sun. "Come on, most of everyone is here and they're making brunch."

"Everyone?"

The girl just smiled and jumped out of my bed, giggling a little before running out of the door and closing the door behind her. Getting that kind of reaction, I was a little worried as to who was here at the moment. I got up and readied myself as quickly as I could, putting on my only change of clothes and making sure I was presentable before cautiously leaving the room.

As I slowly walked down the hall, I didn't hear very much noise in the house. That is, until I got closer and closer to the kitchen, where I was expecting "everyone" to be. The smell of food hit me like a freight train the instant I turned the corner, and my eyes were over loaded by the amount of people in the kitchen.

"Ah, look who is awake and ready for brunch," Skylar's mother said when she turned to find me at the entrance of the kitchen. When I didn't say anything she laughed and came over to me, pulling me farther into the crowd. Truthfully, I was bewildered by all these people here.

"Skylar went outside with the kids, if you want to make sure she is okay. We'll introduce you when everything is finished."

There were more of them outside? Good lord, where had all this family been before? I nodded my head, a silent yes, and slipped through the door that led to the backyard that led to the larger portion of the lake. I walked outside, only squinting a bit at the morning sun, then heard the laughter of a couple children over take my senses.

I let my eyes adjust to the like and when they did, the view was quite amusing. There were around three children out here, less than I had expected, and it seemed like they were all enjoying themselves. Two of them were in the water, around the ages of ten and eleven each, splashing each other and swimming around close to the shore. The other one, who was around the age of five who I remembered as being Angelina, and Skylar was sitting in the sand while they made what looked like a sand castle.

Anthony was sitting out on the deck, close to where I had just come out from, and he was the first to notice my presence here. His head turned to me, and his eyes widened at the sight of me, but soon went back to his cool attitude and called out to Skylar.

"Sky, your doctor friend is here!"

She turned her head then, looking up from her spot and seeing me standing there. She smiled but then glared at the boy who was sunbathing next to me.

"It's Skylar, not Sky!" she huffed angrily, and I could hear the younger boy chuckling at her response. I couldn't help but smile at the fight between the siblings.

"I'll be right there, just let me get the kids out of the water and clean," she told me and I nodded my head, taking a seat next to her step-brother. We sat there for a little while, both watching Skylar interacting with the children, chasing them around like there was nothing wrong with her. I was a little worried that her legs might give out, but I thought she would also be safe on the soft sand.

"I like seeing her out here rather than in that hospital bed," Anthony said to me, though he did not look me in the eyes. His attention was all on her. Once I figured this out, I looked back at her too.

"I do too, though I wish the circumstances were different."

There was silence between us for a moment before the teen turned to me, his eyes innocent and big. "There's nothing that you can do for here? You're absolutely positive that there isn’t some cure for this that you haven't thought of yet?"

My eyes got sad then and I let my shoulder slump slighting, letting my body give him the short answer that he wasn't looking for. "No Anthony, there isn't much that I can do. There's no all magical shot that will help her muscles stop dissolving. If there was anything like that, we would have used it as soon as we could, but there's not. But we are doing as much as we can. I'm here to help her physical therapy, which helps a little, and she's here so that she enjoys the last portions of her life.

He turned back to Skylar then, who was walked closer and closer to us, with all the children in tow. "If there was anything I could do for her, I would do it, even if it meant giving me own life. Skylar is the one person in the world who doesn't deserve to die so young."

"I know that," I confessed to him, "and so does she. But she's ready for this, and she's handling it as best as she can. Are you going to be there for her when she needs it?"

Without a moment's hesitation, he said "Yes."