If I Die Young

Johnny was one of the first one's to arrive after I had called everyone. He was sitting on the couch, and I was laying there with head in his lap, as he ran his fingers through my hair. Everyone slowly started to pile into the living room, obviously curious as to why I had called all of them.

"Sorry, I'm here," Brent said, being the last one to show up.

"Alright, Soph what's going on? Why'd you call all of us here?" Brian asked, sitting with his arms on his knees and never dropping my gaze.

I closed my eyes, trying to get the courage up to say what I needed to say. As I sat up, you could practically cut the tension in the room with a knife. "As you all know, I've been going through treatment again for my cancer. I decided to call my doctor today and ask him how the reports looked to see how the treatment was progressing."

When I paused, Brian was the first to speak. "And what did he say? Everything's going good, right? You're getting better?"

I looked at the floor as I shook my head. "The treatments have barely even touched it. In all reality, there has been no change what-so-ever."

"Well then can't you just go with a stronger way to approach it?" Matt asked.

I took a deep breath, before I looked at all of them. There was only one person that I saw who had the look of realization on their face. "No, Soph," Jimmy whispered, barely shaking his head.

"What?" Brent asked, looking confused between the two of us.

"I'm going to stop treatment," I said, finally gathering up enough courage to speak the words out loud.

As soon as the words left my mouth, Dad was out of his chair and left the room. Suzy got up and went after him. Everyone else in the room had the same looks on their faces; horror. "No, you can't just stop going. It's not going to get better if you just stop going," Brian said, a storm starting to brew behind his brown eyes.

"It's not going to get better with treatment either, Bri," I said, my voice straining, finding it hard to speak at the moment.

"How do you know that? You're not a doctor, you're not a psychic, you don't know the future. You don't know what will happen a few months down the road if you go with a stronger treatment," he argued, just not being able to process the information.

"If the cancer doesn't kill me, the treatment will, Bri!" I said, stopping his babbling.

"How do you figure?" Brent finally piped in.

"Because if none of you have noticed, I'm barely able to keep food down. My skin is raw, worse than when I've gotten sun burns. I'm always tired, never being able to find enough energy. My body is always in pain, but yet I try to hide everything from every one of you so no one has to worry about me... I honestly think Johnny's the only one who knows how much I suffer, because he's around so often."

"How can you be so selfish?" Brian said, with so much pain shinning in his eyes. Michelle tried rubbing his arm, but it had no effect on him.

"Brian, stop it," Jimmy said, giving his friend a warning look. "Sophie is the one going through all of this, not us. No one knows a thing about what she's going through."

"So you're saying that it's okay for her to just decide to die?!" He bursted out, jumping from his seat.

"Look at her, Brian! She's suffering! Would you rather see her suffer or see her at peace?"

Brian glared at his best friend as I just held my head in my hands. "I'm sorry, but I'm not okay with sitting by and watching as my baby sister slowly dies!" He yelled, before storming out of the house, slamming the front door behind him.

"I just thought it would be better to tell all of you now, instead of you finding out at my funeral," I said, somewhat bitterly as I stood up and headed towards the stairs. My head and body were killing me, and I honestly didn't want to stick around to get screamed at for my decisions any longer.

I knew it was a very hard thing to drop on my family, but there was just no way I could keep doing this... In the end, the cancer was going to win whether I kept going to treatment or not.

*Third Person P.O.V.*

Everyone that remained in the living room, sat frozen in their spots. It was a huge bomb that Sophie had just dropped on all of them, non of the knowing how to take it in.

Johnny felt a weight on his chest, fighting the emotions that were tearing him apart from the inside out. He knew how much Soph had been suffering these last weeks, and he kept saying how he just wanted to take the pain away from her. It tore is heart apart though knowing she was basically giving up... She was just letting nature take it's course. He wasn't ready to lose her, though...

Everyone else had heavy hearts, hating the news they had just heard. Sophie held a special place in all of their hearts, like she was their own kid sister. They had known her for as long as they had known Brian. None of them really knew how to take the news, wondering if it was really true.

Though Jimmy knew in his heart, Sophie was doing what was best for her, it still killed him inside. He understood why Brian reacted the way that he did, but Sophie was going through so much more than they knew, so he knew he needed to back her up.

When they all found out that Sophie was sick, they never thought things could get this bad...

*Brian's P.O.V.*

I got in my car and speed away from the house, anger, confusion, and most of al, hurt coursed through my body. It was a good thirty minutes, before I pulled off the road and laid my head on the steering wheel.

I looked up at the sky through the windshield as it started to rain.

Why did she have to do this? Didn't she know how this was going to affect all of us? Mainly how it was going to affect our dad?

The tears finally escaped, as I sat there, crying my heart out. It wasn't something I did often, but when it happened it was for a good reason.

"It's not fair... You can't take her from us," I cried, glaring up at the clouds.

She's too young to die. She hasn't had enough time to live...