In 102 Languages I Love You

"Madison, you're going to be late for school honey, get up."

I groaned trying to sound like something was wrong, it was part of the plan.
"Mom, I don't feel well.." I mumbled making my voice sound raspy and soft. Mom had never questioned anything whenever I told her I wasn't feeling okay. She knew all the things my ALS could do to me, so she never argued.

"Oh Maddy, what's wrong? What hurts? Do you want to stay home today?"

I nodded slowly half closing my eyes. "Yeah, I think that would be best. I don't know, I think I just ate something bad. My stomach feels all icky and stuff, and my throat feels a little soar."

Mom gave me a quick kiss on my forehead and sat beside me on the bed. "Alright well if anything happens, you can call, alright? I'll be home quicker then you can say 'ow'." She smiled. "Now get some rest."

With those words I nodded against my pillow and threw the covers over the rest of my body and closed my eyes. This was part of our plan. Drake and I had decided to skip school today. We'd both fake an illness, his parents wouldn't argue either if he said he was feeling sick, just like my mom didn't. You see there was reason for the chapped lips, there was a reason for the random pain he got in his shoulder when we went out to eat. There was a reason why he looked death like, pale, like a zombie, just like me. There was a reason he had been coughing a lot lately.

We both agreed we had some kind of connection you couldn't find in other people. We both had something in common. We were both going to die sooner then anybody would expect us.
Yesterday, after he found me on the curb watching the cars speed by, he ended up sitting by my side and we ended up talking about everything. In less then a day I ended up loving someone. I ended up caring for someone else more then anything in the world. I ended up hugging someone of the opposite sex. I ended up holding some one's hand. I ended up being able to say 'I'd take a bullet for you any day.' We had a similarity, the biggest similarity that almost connected us by the hip.

We felt the same way, and I loved knowing my feelings weren't alone. I loved knowing we were going through the same thing-well, almost.

He had unlocked the new side of me I have been waiting for someone to reveal. I had been holding up the key to every one's faces, anyone that encountered my, but no one dared. For once I had someone who I called call a friend. Someone who was ready right then and there to hold a bucket and catch my tears. Someone to spill my secrets too, the very few I had but the biggest one I held from the whole world. I had someone who made me smile. I had Drake. I could be myself around him, there was no secret between us.

Drake, well, he had leukemia.