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A/N:

Okay before I start this chapter, I want to tell you all something. 2 somethings, actually.

1) This chapter is very unrealistic. Sorry about that.

2) I changed Day's cast... again.

*Cue the readers' collective groaning*

BUT! This time I've found the perfect Day. Her name is Marina Laswick. Here's a pic collage I made and I must say she's EXACTLY HOW I'D IMAGINED HER TO BE. For some reason, I'd thought Candice was too... regal, I guess? Unaprochable? Marina Laswick seems more real, I guess.

Okay I'm rambling.

The collage of Day June Winters

I hope you like her as much as I do. SingingSmiley thanks for helping me figure out that Day needed a cast change in the first place :P 

She suggested Chloe Grace Moretz but I felt like Marina Laswick was better...? Do you agree?

Okay, enjoy the chapter...

-^-

Chapter 27: There's a Difference Between a Pessimist and a Realist

A pessimist complains that the harsh storm will wipe out civilization.
An optimist says and expects the rains to change course.
A realist simply opens out an umbrella.

~Starlight24

The sad part about allergies was that I never passed out. I know, to some this may seem weird and I guess that's justified because who would want to faint, right? For me though, I thought it made more sense to be lost to the world when you're in pain.

I guess this works both metaphorically and figuratively. Sometimes when you're hurt, you just want to squeeze your eyes shut and act like the rest of the world is just a blur of nonexistence that you can just block out. As cowardly as it may sound, no one actually wants to face pain, whether it's heartbreak, betrayal, or anything, but in my case fractures and allergies.

Wow, I must be really sick. I'm starting to talk about the metaphorical equivalent of an allergy.

My throat was tightening painfully slowly and my lips were beginning to swell up. My whole mouth felt like someone had stuck a whole branch of poison ivy inside and my eyes were watering. I couldn't breathe properly, forget answer the stupid questions around me.

"Oh my god! Day, are you okay?"

"Day! Answer us! Are you okay!?"

Yeah guys. I'm totally okay. I just think I'm going to die, that's all. Oh, not to forget the fact that my lips are so large that Angelina Jolie would be jealous.

Hey! I just realized something. Angelina Jolie basically means Angelina 'Pretty' in French. That's such a cool last name. I'm stuck with June Winters.

My ways of digression is brilliant, really.

My head was starting to feel funny. This is probably because there wasn't enough oxygen being supplied there because I couldn't breathe. My throat had completely clogged up and I was starting to make squeaking noises. I was trying to gulp in air like a person who'd just stayed underwater for a good one minute. I could see spots dancing in front of my vision and I felt myself being carried and the world was spinning around me.

I am not going to deny it. I'd thought about how I'd die. I mean, it was kind of hard not to when you met the doctor at least once a month and they told you that you should always be prepared. Those words don't exactly inspire a lot of confidence in a person, at least not to me. I mean, it's not that I was really depressed and wallowed in self-pity thinking I'd die a horribly gruesome death with everyone who was ever mean to me feeling really guilty. You see, there's a difference between being a pessimist and realist. Pessimists think of the worst possible outcomes. Realists think of the most probable outcomes.

I'd always imagined it to be an immunity system failure. I'd always imagined getting hurt beyond repair or getting to the brink and falling ill.

Not once had I imagined the situation to be Death By Peanuts.

Haha, in your face chocolate!

I wonder if they'll make that an ice cream. Maybe it could be my death wish to have an ice cream named after my death. Oh, what an honor.

I hope Natalie felt bad about killing me. I hope she was sent to prison where she rotted for the rest of her life. I hope someone carried out the whole Starlight thing, or someone told my dwindling fans that I died. I hope Miss X (basically Nat, right?) died of guilt and became labeled as the social pariah of the school.

Can you blame me for wanting the worst to happen to her? I mean, she was the reason I was going to die today.

Yeah, I had embraced that fact. At least I'd told my mom I'd loved her, spent time with my best friends and I'd gotten to kiss Dylan.

Wait, why did kissing Dylan even matter!?

Yeah, definitely not enough oxygen to the brain. That was the only justifiable thing to why I thought of that repulsive idea.

I could feel my blood rushing to my ears like the Niagara Falls. My breathing patterns were becoming more and more erratic.

I didn't shut my eyes because I was too afraid that they'd never open again. Just because I had embraced the fact that I'd die today didn't mean that I wasn't outright terrified.

My friends looked like multicolored blobs. I was being carried by three blobs. My vision was cloudy and there was blank trying to etch its way through. I could feel my heart hammering in my chest wildly. The one thing I'd never wanted to have to experience was suffocation. It was my biggest fear. It was sad that suffocation was exactly how I was going to die.

Yeah, I have the most brilliant life with the most brilliant luck in the world.

With my nose becoming stuffy and my mouth trying to gulp down air like a strangled goldfish, oxygen was becoming harder to scarf down and all my senses seemed to be going through a lockdown. I squeezed my eyes shut and opened again, and my heart jumped when I realized that the world was black. I didn't even have the energy to rub my eyes again. It wasn't even like I'd fallen unconscious. The world was simply black. And I could hardly hear the noises of everyone around me; it seemed like I had been shoved underwater.

I shut my eyes again, and to my pleasure, I drifted off.

So this was what death felt like.

*****

Roses. There were tens and thousands of roses everywhere. I didn't even like roses. They were too cliché and their smell was intoxicating in a bad way.

There was a woman in front of me with a beautiful smile. She had her hair tied in a graceful topknot and the grey splash showed she was an older woman. Her skin was pale and she had brilliant blue eyes. She wore a long, yellow dress that licked her feet and looked like it had been spun out of a spider's silky threads. She had a worn face and slightly trembling hands, but otherwise she looked like a no-nonsense person.

She looked vaguely familiar for some reason.

"Um... hi?" I asked, feeling confused. Was this heaven?

"Hello, Day Winters," the woman said in a deep voice that sounded like she'd shouted through a cave even if she was right in front of me.

"Um, am I dead?" I asked, feeling weirded out by this mysterious person who knew my name.

"No, but you might as well be in your state," she said, and I realized she was a bigger pessimist than I was. "However, I think you have a sliver of a chance of living, but you'll be barely alive."

"Oh wow," I said sarcastically. "Isn't that reassuring?"

"Don't give me that cynical attitude, Day. I don't appreciate it at all." She sounded very crisp and motherly, and I felt annoyed that she was talking to me like that.

"Don't give me that tone, whatever your name is. I don't appreciate it at all." I placed my hands on my hips and then I looked down to see what I was wearing.

It was a light blue dress that cascaded down to the ground and trailed behind me. It was shimmery and my hair was done up beautifully.

"Whatever your name is?" the lady asked, seemingly amused. "Don't tell me you don't recognize me, Day."

"Well I don't old lady," I said, rolling my eyes.

Yeah, I know. I was being disrespectful to an old woman. She was just kind of annoying me though.

"Aren't you a ray of sunshine?" she asked, and she didn't seem to be mad. "Looks like the apple doesn't fall far from the tree."

"Okay, can I please get out of here?" I asked, whining. "I want to know what's going on in the hospital and whether everyone is crying."

"Oh, everyone is crying alright," the old lady said, smiling sadly. "Your heartrate is slowing down. That's not a good sign, is it?"

"Well obviously not," I said dryly. "Now how do I escape, oh wise and cryptic one?"

The lady rolled her eyes. "I would have smacked you, but you remind me painfully of myself so I shall refrain from doing so."

This spiked my curiosity. "Who are you?" I asked. "I feel like I've met you before."

The lady looked at me sadly. "Oh no, you've never met me before, I can assure you of that."

I furrowed my brows in confusion. "Then why do I feel like I know you?"

The lady brushed my question off. "Look, I'm trying to help you survive. I had the same case as you, and I even died because of it. However, I died at the age of sixty and I'm sure as hell going to make sure you do the same, if not live longer."

Whoa, old lady's on fire. 

I raised an eyebrow at her. "Seriously, who are you?" I asked again.

"I'm sure you'll find out later. Now, we need you to survive." She handed me a rose and I looked at her like she was crazy.

"A rose?" I asked, giving her a 'crazy-old-lady' look.

"No," she said with an eye roll. "A daffodil. Of course this is a rose you dimwitted child."

I seriously underestimated this woman's sass quotient.

"And what am I going to do with this wonderful rose, may I ask?" I said with an eye roll that matched her own.

"Eat it, obviously," she said, and I thought she was trying to wise crack again and I laughed.

At this she gave me a deadpanned glare and I raised an eyebrow. "Seriously?" 

The woman let out a loud sigh of annoyance. "Are you generally this slow are is it just me who brings out this factor in you?"

WELL EXCUSE ME!? 

"Lady," I said, feeling my usual annoyance bubbling up. "I don't know who you are or what you want, but you can't just go around bossing over me and making comments like that. I don't care if you're as old as you are... I don't care if you're the freaking Queen of the World! All I know is that you're annoying me and I'm going to politely ask you to stop."

"Politely," she scoffed, before giving me a small wink. "Now eat the darn rose, will you?"

"I'm not eating a rose," I said, feeling incredibly stupid.

"Do it or I will shove it down your throat."

I raised an eyebrow at her. We were pretty alike and it was kind of scary. Was I really this overbearing? Sheesh, I need to tone it down.

I picked up a rose and began munching on it.

"Now think of someone you love. Think of why you want to live, Day." Her tone was no longer condescending. It was commanding.

Who all did I want to live for? I wanted to live for my family. My mom and dad only had me. They'd be broken if I died.

I wanted to live for my friends. Deirdre, Marie, Hailey, Bryan, Zach, Jase and Cady had been everything to me. They'd been my whole freaking world at school. They were willing to throw away their social status for me.

I wanted to live for Dylan. He'd been my next-door-neighbor, the one I could turn to when I was bored. The one who kept me company and made fun of me. The one who helped me out. The one who kissed me. He was a lot more to me than I let on, and I wanted to live for him.

I wanted to live for Popcorned. He was my annoying best friend, and I wanted to find out who he was. I wanted to see how much he could irritate me. I wanted to see how much he could make me smile; how much he could make me laugh till I cried.

I wanted to live for Nat and Max. Not because I loved them, but because I wanted them to see that I was alright on my own. That I was fully capable of standing up after they beat me down to the ground. I wanted to prove to them that I was perfectly capable of being strong.

I smiled warmly at the woman, before taking one large bite of the rose.

To my surprise, it tasted like my berry smoothie should have tasted minus the nuts and bitter fruit bits.

"It tastes... good," I said, because I'd braced myself for the bitter tinge of a flower. I'd eaten a flower once, and it tasted gross.

"I know," the lady said, and to my surprise there were tears in her eyes. "I love you, Day Winters."

Her voice was all choked up.

"I... I don't even know who you are," I said, feeling odd. Should I say I loved her too? I didn't, and it's not good to lie to the elderly, right?

"Why do you think I never say your full name?" she whispered.

"I don't know," I shrugged.

"It's because my name is in it."

All of a sudden, before I could process her words, the world was whipped from beneath me and flower petals engulfed me in their soft hugs. I gasped, trying to reach out for something but it felt like I'd just been flushed down a toilet. I was drowning and I didn't know whether I'd breathe.

I felt myself slam against a bed-like foundation and I screamed. I couldn't open my eyes, and everything was just too loud around me. My body felt weak and frail, like if I moved it I would shatter.

But I felt alive.

I'd just met her. I'd just met my grandmother. I'd just met June.

Then I opened my eyes.

A/N:

Pic of Day=> FYI I've added a bunch of pics throughout the chapters if you want to check them out =)

Yeah, I know... You can't meet the dead, this was so unrealistic, there was no drama, no Dylan, and yadah yadah yah. I hope you liked it anyway though, because the next chapter is going to be good. 

DAY SURVIVED! Do you love me or do you love me xD

It's not like I was going to kill the main character anyway. I like her too much.

Anyway, thoughts on this chapter? Did you like June? Her name isn't June Winters, though. Winters is her dad's last name, and June was her mother's mother. Just clarifying that.

Song of the day: Just Like Fire by P!nk

Teaser: On a scale of one to ten, how excited is everyone to see Day alive?

I hope you liked this anyway. It wasn't that long, but oh well xD

And thanks so much for your support! 

Love you all,

~Lexi