[4/52] - A story about three siblings

It was a little chilly, but I was happy to stick it out, smiling pleasantly at my mum nest to me. The airport air was cold compared to the heavy humidity of the outside. I kept glancing up at the screen showing the arrivals, waiting for a glimpse of that bright blue suitcase.

It felt like such a long time, but it wasn't, not really. When I finally see her my face cracks into a smile. I have waited months for this. She spots my mother and I, heading in our direction. She looks straight through me.

I crawl into bed with my younger sister that night. We're sixteen  and seventeen, much too old for this, but she holds me tight and strokes my hair as I weep for my still missing other half, who sits in her room and messages her new friends. My tears leave wet, hot, sticky patches on her pillowcase, but she just whispers soothing words into my hair and runs her fingers through my sweaty hair.

"I wish Charlotte were here. I need my best friend."

The words are not meant to be overheard, but she pays little attention to me these days anyway. The hurt runs down my spine like a lightning strike, leaving me pained. I should have known better than to just expect her to come back to me. I flick through photos with bitterness, her smile in them so distant from her current, consistently bored eyes joined by a flatline of a mouth. If she won't come to me, so begins my chase.

I follow her for hours. My younger sister invited me to go out with her, but what if she comes for me while I am gone? She claims to be assailed by "follow up assignments" at all times. It releases her only for brief appearances at meals. I go with my younger sister, eventually. I waited and I chased and I wasted my time. She knows where I am. My younger sister breaks into a smile whenever I agree to go with her. I push the rejection in my stomach down and focus on the present.

"You're spending so much time with her. You don't have any time for me."

Her words cut me. "I waited and I chased you. You turned me down." I pause, hearing only silence. "She came to me and even though I turned her down the first time, she accepted me when I came. She didn't tell me that it was all my fault and send me away again. I wanted to be around you so badly and you said no. I moved on because of you, not before you."

She stares at me and moves away. I will accept the blame. I always do. Doesn't mean it hurts any less.

[3/52] - a retelling of a fairy tale

As I sit here in her bedroom, I wonder how I could've ever doubted that this reward would pay out the risks. She's so beautiful, yet so fragile, yet so full of spirit. Her porcelain skin is almost reflective in the dim moonlight. She looks ill, I admit, but still as elegant as ever, hooked up to machines and wires, yet as dignified as ever. She smiles at me so wide that I'm afraid her face will break into two.

"Shhhhhh," I whisper, holding out the bag of smuggled cookies. She reaches for one tentatively, as though I will yell "SYKE" and jump back out the window from whence I came. Her face melts before she has even finished chewing her first bite.

My heart soars before footsteps on the stairs paralyse me momentarily. The footsteps pass and disappear. I breathe in a sigh of relief.

"I'm sorry," she shakes her head. "This is ridiculous. You don't need to be here." She nudges me toward the window.

I giggle under my breath, a light tinkle like a tiny bell. "Nothing could keep me from my princess." I lift her hand and kiss it between the many drips and monitor wires.

"You know what will happen if my mother catches you up here…"

"She'll have to drag me tooth and nail from your side."

"You're ridiculous."

"You have to be to climb three storeys up an unreliable rope ladder just to deliver cookies to a dying princess, but conveniently, I love you."

She rolls her eyes.

I run my fingers over her delicate hand. She sighs contentedly.

Her most striking physical feature is her long, golden hair. Chemotherapy usually kills hair calls, but she's lucky enough for hers to just continue growing. She's also unlucky enough for the chemotherapy to not kill the cancer cells.

"You know we can't be together forever," she whispers.

"I am quite content with being together right now."

As I sit here in her bedroom, I notice the smell of cookies on her breath and the chill in her hand. She's so beautiful, yet fragile, yet full of spirit.

[2/52] - A story about rising to a challenge

When he falls, my world crumbles. His legs just give way from beneath him, having been weary for so long, eventually unable to support him any longer, weak muscles collapsing even under his admittedly light frame.

My heart stops and adrenaline shoots through my system. I panic. Thousands of thoughts fly through my brain, most of them far too quickly to even register.

I wonder if this is what the internet is like

I shake it out of my head, returning to my grandfather lying in a heap on the linoleum of the kitchen floor. He makes a faint sound of pain and my heart breaks even further.

I race over to check his state. There's no way I can pick him up and even if I could, there would be nothing I could to do to help. He blinks groggily and as I grab his hand, his grasp is almost non-existent.

I know he doesn't want to go back to hospital; his existence is already a repetitive one, but at least it is within the comfort of his own home. In hospital it's just the same, only more clinical and structured. No-one in the family even dares to whisper the unspoken thought

If he goes in again, it's unlikely that he'll ever come out…

But as his body lies in a pile in front of me, I don't have many other options. I swat at an itch on my face that I vaguely recognise as tears. My heart is beating too quickly, too intensely to be normal.

I pick up the phone and punch the zero button three times before babbling answers to questions I will not remember. I stroke my grandfather's face soothingly, trying to keep the light in his eyes, at least until the ambulance arrives.

The phone sticks to my face, wet with salty tears. My heartbeat doesn't stop racing. I don't know if it ever will.