Chapter One
How it all began

I remember when my sister Katy was just a normal ten-year-old girl. I mean, what's there to say- she was stubborn, she was imaginative, she was outgoing. She knew how to laugh things off and how to just live. She was at the stage that no one took her very seriously, because to them she was just a silly little girl with silly little dreams. Yeah, Katy was just a normal kid until… well, she wasn't. And I guess that's where our story starts, at the beginning of what seemed like the ending.

It was not all that long ago –at least, in my memory, it seems like it was just last month, just last year. Not long at all. It was the beginning of summer, when the sun beat down mercilessly against our poor Midwestern town, where many of its citizens just dying to get out. School was out of session, of course, and because of this the streets were filled with dozens of children and teenagers and hoodlums, all looking for some sort of excitement to quell the boredom of everyday life.

And me? Well, I was just trying to get by. I had just turned thirteen, that bad sort of age where I wasn't exactly old enough to date or go out on my own, but I wasn't young enough to be hanging onto my parents like a child. I had a few friends, but most of them lived closer to the city, down in the suburbs –to them, I was the country girl, though I think that was a bit of an overstatement. We really didn't live all that far from the city limits, and it's not like our lives differed greatly from anybody else's. Everyone in the school seemed to think I was the cowgirl type, the one that had a farmer father and the sort of mother that stayed at home sewing and cooking. That's not at all true. My dad was actually a lawyer, and my mom a real estate agent. Neither of them had a particularly amazing salary, but they were able to make enough money for us all to get by. Besides, I was nothing like a cowgirl- I had no idea how to ride a horse, more or less take care of one. I was just a normal girl, and average seemed like the most exact word that could describe me.

And then there was Katy, the baby of the family. God, she could be so annoying! She was all golden curls and obnoxious grins, a small, pale little thing –a baby-faced angel that could make anyone smile. Except me. She seemed to have fun making things hard on me. Like this one time when she stained all my good shirts with her paint, because she wanted to make them pretty; or another time when she went up to talk to my crush and tell him every embarrassing thing she knew about me. I mean seriously, if she wasn't doing all of that to make me miserable, then I wasn't quite sure what her motive was- but then again, Katy was an interesting character. She was smarter than a lot of people her age, but she was also much, much stranger. I could never really understand her.

Anyway, my parents were always worried about my sister, whether it was the fact that she could be completely energetic one second and suddenly tired the next, or because of the bruises that always seemed to decorate her limbs –she was fragile, much more breakable than I had ever been, apparently. She was always so skinny, no matter what she seemed to eat. The result was that she was always in the spotlight of my parents' attention, and I… well, I never seemed to be. I guess you could say I was jealous- I mean, they spent so much of their time tormenting over Katy's health that they never really noticed what I was doing. Most kids would be ecstatic that they could get away with almost anything and never have their parents notice. I guess I'm not most kids.

I remember that specific life-changing day, that one humid afternoon. It was the day that Dad had some big job out at the city, and Mom had taken Katy to the doctor's office for her annual checkup. I was home alone that day, and I was glad for the opportunity to just relax. I can still recall that I was sitting in front of the television, watching a bunch of old reruns when I got the phone call. When I answered the phone lazily, I didn't think much of it. How was I supposed to know that a few words could change my whole life?

"Hello?" I answered.

"Dallyn?" the voice on the receiving end asked.

"Yeah, this is her."

"Dallyn honey, this is your mother," she said, and it was only then that I recognized her voice –but something sounded off.

"Okay…" My voice sounded a bit awkward, I knew, but I wasn't really sure what I was supposed to say.

"Honey, I… well, I don't really know how to tell you this… it's just..." she sounded nervous, and she paused, taking a moment to breath. "Katy's been taken to the hospital, dear."

"Oh," I said slowly- for some reason, the whole situation just wasn't clicking in my mind very well. "Um… why?"

"Dallyn, dear… the doctors think that Katy may be sick."

"Really?" I was a little interested at this –at least, Mom had my undivided attention. "With what?"

"Dallyn," Mom said my name again, but the word was more of a sob.

I was beginning to get worried. "What is it, Mom?" I asked, and my voice even sounded a bit frantic to myself. "Mom, tell me. What's wrong?"

"They think she has Leukemia."

And BAM- just like that, my whole world had changed.