***** To those of you that have asked that I write a companionship story to, "En Dag Tilbage," I did. However, to those of you that have no yet read, "En Dag Tilbage." Then I request that you do since it will explain some things that aren't explained in this story. I suppose it was my fault to begin with that I left some readers hanging, wondering why some things were left unanswered...so this story is to finish all of the unanswered questions.
However, I do have one person to thank: "Cat". Had it not been for her inspiration and motivation, I might not have ever gotten around to finally writing this story. It is in that sense that I dedicate this entire story to her, for it was her love of the characters that drove me to reflect back on the simple love that a brother and sister shared and enabled me to write with such passion and vigor that I was once again astounded by what I'd written. My absolute thanks also goes to her for suggesting the ending, to which I was very excited to write!
Before anyone proceeds any further, know that this is a long story. It's not intended for a quick read as some other stories on the website are...so if you expect to have an orgasm within the next few lines, forget it, this story is supposed to be long and drawn out. Oh, and one more thing before you start, please do NOT comment to me saying that the sister should've become pregnant at the end by her brother. I won't get in to the reasons why, so just don't...please. And as always, I like feedback, good or bad and if you'd like to discuss this story further or have any questions, leave your e-mail and I will e-mail you back...maybe not always guaranteed, but I do make every effort I can to respond to my fans, but understand that sometimes I am very busy and you may have to wait a little while to receive a response. Thank you, and enjoy the story!
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Et Sidste Kys-Part 1
(The Last Kiss)
If you had one day left, what would you do? If you were anything like me, you'd do everything...including your sister. I'm Ben, and having several fights with brain cancer, I never really had what you could call a 'normal' life. I found out I had cancer one day when I was seven years old. I don't remember much about how or what happened directly before and after diagnosis, only that my mother cried after the doctor left. I didn't understand why she cried and didn't understand the entire prognosis at all. The doctor and nurses tried to explain it so a child could understand and told me that I was basically going to become very sick, which was true. I spent my first night in the hospital with my father and told him that I wanted to go home so I could be with my sister, Jessica, who'd been my best friend since I was about three years old. But my father said that we couldn't leave yet and that I would have to stay and every time I asked him why, he gave told me the same thing the doctors had told me, that I was sick and had to get better.
I never wanted the disease and I had a hard time understanding why I was seemingly the only one who'd gotten the cancer and not my sister, or my mother, or father. I asked the doctors and nurses why I'd gotten it, but they couldn't give me any validating response and I stopped asking soon afterwards, knowing that it would've been a waste of time.
By the time I was eight, the cancer had gotten stronger and I had to be carried back and forth between the chemotherapy room by a strong older woman named Estella. She became like a second mother to me when my own mother had to go back home to look after my sister. Estella taught me how to read and how to do basic math and at first, I admit, I hated it, but soon it would be the only thing I would have the stomach to do when the chemotherapy started and made me sicker than I'd ever been before.
It was nearly five more years of chemotherapy treatments on and off every few months or so, but during that time, I actually felt okay and got to go back home and see Jessica and grab a stuffed animal from my room. The chemotherapy always seemed to make me sick and as soon as I understood what was happening, I would scream and cry every time I had to get another chemotherapy treatment. But chemotherapy always seemed to help me and one time, I got to celebrate Jessica's ninth birthday at home for a couple of hours and that was the first time I'd found that Jessica had changed. I'd been away so long that she looked at me like I was a completely different person. I was no longer a brother to her, but more like a distant relative. I still liked her of course and after unwrapping her presents, I gave her something that I'd found while venturing around the hospital, a stuffed tiger. She took it nervously and then embraced it tightly, telling me that she would never let it go and she would love it forever.
One more year of being tested and re-tested and I was finally released from the hospital and able to go home. But home wasn't home for me anymore. I'd grown accustomed to the hospital and seeing sick and dying people and the shouts of grieving loved ones that the silence of home was almost frightening. I missed my own hospital room and the big window that overlooked the hospital's courtyard and the sunlight that slanted through my window first thing in the morning. Even my own sister, Jessica, seemed to be a stranger to me by then. We were strangers to each other. I frequently closed the door to my bedroom and sobbed and cried, knowing that had it not been for the stupid cancer that we would've been closer, but when I'd finished crying, I always thought of what Estella had once told me. I remember that it had been just before a chemotherapy treatment, one of many, that she'd told me that god had chosen me to suffer and that it was my job to feel the pain and sickness, but that by going through all of that, I would be stronger than everyone else...in ways I could never imagine. Of course, hearing her say that made me think of Superman or Spiderman since all I read by that time was comic books that my father had brought me, but the statement had stayed with me through the years and I knew it was my place to fight and grow stronger, so that I could laugh in the face of the doctor that had given me two months to live when I was seven years old.
I started school just as soon as my hair grew back and to be honest, I was unaccustomed to having what I considered long hair. Before, when I'd lost all my hair due to chemotherapy treatments, I never had to scrub and wash my hair and besides, Estella usually handled my head washing. The first time I took a shower, I poured out a handful (too much, of course) of shampoo and began to massage it in to my hair, unknowing to hold my head back to prevent the shampoo from running in to my eyes and didn't know before until a strong burning sensation entered my eyes. I nearly slipped and hit my head on the side of the bathtub I was standing in when my father came, brought by my screams of pain and held my face under the showerhead and washed out all the shampoo from my eyes. From that point on, someone was always outside the bathroom. It was embarrassing having them sit outside the bathroom door, waiting for me to call for them in case of emergency, but slightly comforting, bringing me back to the days in the hospital.
When I realized that everyone in school was avoiding me because I'd had cancer, I grew even lonelier. Jessica would act like she didn't know me sometimes and I had to work hard to corner her in the hallways to ask her if she'd gotten a boyfriend yet. The answer was always no, but I knew she'd been talking to boys and sometimes I watched and stayed silent, wishing she'd just want to talk to me instead of me having to initiate the conversations that never led anywhere.
With the passage of time wounds are healed and life changes. I started eleventh grade and Jessica started her last year of high school. Things had changed between us after the incident with her boyfriend, Dan. I never really received the real story when I'd asked her why he'd called her a crazy bitch in front of everyone in the cafeteria, but I had some idea that it had been about me. Everyone knew I'd had cancer and some even mocked me for it. I didn't care because I knew I was stronger than them and ignored them, but Dan seemed to have gone beyond means, he'd insulted me and my sister had actually stuck up for me and then he dumped her. Dan was an idiotic moronic football player, but the damage had been done. I'd ruined Jessica's reputation and it was my entire fault. But, from that point on, she seemed to shun her friends more than before since she had very few, just like me, and she finally began to accept that she was my sister and I was her brother.
Everything was going fine until I went to school one day in April and instead of falling asleep in class, I'd fainted and woken up in the hospital. The doctors informed my parents and they came to hear the news I'd heard before. They spoke quietly, like I was a little child again and made it seem that I didn't know anything, but they told me that I could do whatever I wanted and that they wouldn't stop me from making the decision. One doctor wanted to attempt to operate on me. One wanted to give me more chemotherapy treatments and one even wanted me to become a vegetable the rest of my life. I was disgusted by everything the doctors wanted me to do and told them I wasn't going to do anything, somehow hoping that the cancer would go away by itself...wishful thinking, I know. The doctors seemed disappointed by my decision and my parents seemed sad, but no one argued with me. I went back home, withdrew from school and stayed home, eating junk food when I could and watching television. Jessica stayed in school since she wasn't doing as bad as I had, I was failing five of my classes and never completed the homework because I didn't care whether or not I did any of it.
With my refusal to restart treatment for my cancer, the sickness came and sometimes I was so sick I could barely move and on a few occasions, I was unable to even drink water. I slept most of the time through the pain, waiting for the next time I would feel good enough to move around. My parents visited the hospital and were given some special pills to keep my sickness to a minimum and enable me to eat more regularly as well as feel good enough to move around.
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"Can I come in?" I asked, smiling and sticking my head inside Jessica's bedroom door. I had realized that prom was going to be happening in about a week and I didn't know if the prom would be on one of my sick days or not. I wanted to make sure I would at least get to dance with someone and my sister was the only option left after I was turned down by one of my sister's friends, Kaliegh.
"Sure," She mumbled and flipped a page in one of her textbooks. I had looked through her backpack when she left it home one day when she went to school and felt the need to learn and suddenly wished that I hadn't left school because home was as boring as life could get. My parents tried to stay home with me and give me company, but they also needed to work to pay off my hospital bills that totaled somewhere in the hundreds of thousands of dollars.
