On the morning his life tilted off its axis, Miles Garcia stood in the hallway of St. Mary’s Children’s Hospital in California, holding a plastic tray full of pudding cups while a helicopter thundered past the window on its way to the trauma roof.

The whole place smelled like lemon cleaner and hand sanitizer, but someone had painted the walls with bright ocean murals—smiling dolphins, cartoon fish, a too-blue Pacific sky. It was supposed to make things less scary. It didn’t. Nothing could disguise the IV poles, the beep of monitors, or the way parents stared at the floor like it might open up and swallow them.

“This wing is for our long-term patients,” the volunteer coordinator said, heels clicking on the linoleum. “Your role is to keep the nurse’s station tidy, deliver meals, talk to patients, help with support groups when you’re asked.”

She gave him a brief, clinical smile. “And Miles? Try to be a little cheerful. It’s ‘doom and gloom’ enough around here.”

Cheerful. Sure.

He nodded, adjusting the volunteer badge on his hoodie. The badge felt heavier than it looked. His dad said volunteering would “beef up his college applications.” The way he said it—college, like a mountain Miles was supposed to climb on command—made the word feel more like a threat than a dream.

They passed a window where, just for a second, he could see the American flag snapping on the pole outside, bright against the California sky. All his life, he’d seen that flag in classrooms and on TV, wrapped around big ideas like “opportunity” and “freedom.” Now, in this hallway, those words felt far away.

He turned his head and almost ran into a gurney.

A girl lay on the bed, pushed by a nurse and trailed by a man and woman who looked like they’d aged ten years in one week. The girl had a knit beanie pulled low over her ears, wisps of hair peeking out, an IV taped to her hand. Her eyes flicked up and met his.

For a heartbeat, everything stopped—helicopter, beeps, footsteps, voices.

Her gaze was tired but fierce, the blurry hazel of sunlight through green glass. He froze like an idiot with his tray of pudding.

The nurse steered around him. The girl’s lips quirked in the tiniest smile, there and gone.

Then she was past him, heading down the long hallway toward a sign that said NEUROLOGY.

Later, he would tell himself that was the first moment it happened.

That was the moment he started falling in love with a girl whose doctors weren’t sure would see her eighteenth birthday.

Three floors away, in a high school classroom that smelled like pencil shavings and old carpet, Tess Tanner stood at the front of the room gripping a sheet of paper so tightly her knuckles turned white.

“Okay, class,” her English teacher said. “Who would like to volunteer to read their poem first? Anyone? Tess? You’re up.”

Of course.

She stepped forward, trying to ignore the whisper she heard behind her.

“She wants to be the main character so bad,” one girl muttered.

“She’s such an attention hog,” another replied.

Tess swallowed, cleared her throat, and began to read.

“The sky remembers every storm,” she said, voice barely above a whisper. “The thunder’s laugh, the lightning’s form. But after chaos, calm appears, a painted peace that hides its tears.”

She breathed in deeper. Something in her chest loosened.

“I’m like that sky, both wild and kind,” she continued. “A restless heart, a steady mind. I break, then bend, then break anew. But every crack lets sunlight through.”

By the time she finished, the classroom was quiet. Then, an unexpected sound—applause. Real applause. Her teacher’s eyes shone.

“Great job, Tess,” he said. “And in case everyone didn’t know, I entered Tess’s short story as one of three finalists in this year’s short story competition. Excellent work, as always.”

The bell rang. Chairs scraped, feet shuffled, and the magic evaporated as her classmates filed out.

“Ugh,” one girl muttered as she passed. “She seriously thinks she’s special because she can rhyme?”

“Tell me about it,” the other replied. “She just wants attention. Not getting enough at home, Tess?”

Tess bent to pick up her notebook. A hand shot out and flicked it. Her books tumbled to the floor.

She straightened slowly. For a second, she saw herself from above, like a shot in one of those teen dramas set in American suburbs: lockers, fluorescent lights, a girl on her knees picking up her life off the dirty linoleum while everyone walked around her.

Her jaw tightened.

“Isn’t that right, Tess?” the bully said. “You’re just a background character in your sister’s story.”

Something snapped.

Tess shoved her. Hard.

The girl staggered back into the lockers with a loud clang.

“Hey!” the teacher’s voice barked from the doorway. “What’s going on here?”

“She assaulted me!” the girl gasped, clutching her arm as if it had been ripped off instead of nudged.

Of course, that was the moment the school called home.

And of course, that was the moment her parents were sitting in a hospital room, watching a doctor point at a glowing scan of their older daughter’s brain.

“So… that’s my brain?” Shauna asked, her voice lighter than the words deserved. “It looks like a weather map for a really bad storm.”

The neurologist didn’t smile. “That’s one way to put it.”

Bright white spots glowed across the image like flashes of lightning. Shauna stared at them, feeling strangely detached. It was almost like looking at a photograph of someone else.

“You’ve been honest with me before,” she said. “Right?”

“Of course,” the doctor said gently.

“Then don’t stop now,” Shauna replied. “What are my chances?”

In the corner, her parents sat side by side in uncomfortable plastic chairs, hands laced together so tightly their knuckles were the same color as the walls. Her mom’s eyes had permanent shadows under them now; her dad’s shoulders were hunched like he was trying to carry something too heavy.

The doctor sighed. “We’re seeing a lot of progression,” he said carefully. “The treatments we’ve tried… they’re not slowing things down anymore. There is a new trial we could consider. It’s shown some promise in a few cases. But if you’re asking for a number—”

“Very low?” Shauna supplied for him.

He hesitated. “Almost none,” he admitted.

Her mom covered her mouth. Her dad looked like someone had unplugged him.

Shauna watched their faces with a strange calm. “I always said I didn’t want to go without knowing the truth,” she said. “Guess that’s one thing off my bucket list.”

The joke landed with a thud. But she smiled anyway. Because if she stopped making jokes, she wasn’t sure what would be left.

Miles first saw her again when he was wiping down the counter at the nurse’s station. The coordinator had been gone ten minutes and he already had three different people snapping orders at him.

“Room B790 needs their tray picked up.”

“Can you restock the gloves?”

“Try not to look like you’re going to a funeral,” one nurse added. “It freaks out the kids.”

He grabbed a rag and tried to arrange his face into something neutral.

The elevator dinged. He heard the squeak of wheels and looked up.

The girl from the gurney was sitting in a wheelchair now, a soft beanie pulled over her short hair, camera hanging from her neck by a faded strap. Her IV pole rolled beside her like a weird metallic escort.

“Shauna!” one of the nurses said warmly. “Going on a little tour?”

“Just trying to keep my fan base happy,” she said, lifting the camera. She glanced at Miles. “What’s up, Pudding Guy?”

He nearly dropped the rag. “Uh. Hi,” he said. Smooth, he thought. Very smooth. “I’m, uh… Miles.”

“Shauna,” she said. “But you already know that because it’s on my chart, which you have totally peeked at.”

“I would never invade patient privacy,” he said quickly. “That would be, like, illegal.”

She smiled. “Relax. I’m kidding.”

“I make a great first impression, right?” he added weakly.

“You could say that,” she replied, eyes sparkling.

Before he could think of anything else to say, one of the nurses appeared behind her. “Hey, Miss Photog, ready for group?”

Shauna grimaced. “As ready as I’ll ever be.”

As the nurse wheeled her away, Shauna turned her head, walking backward for a few steps so she could look at him. “Hey, Miles?”

“Yeah?”

“Try smiling,” she said. “The walls already look depressed. They don’t need help.”

Then she disappeared around the corner.

He caught himself grinning like an idiot.

The volunteer coordinator would be proud.

Tess pushed open the front door of the house and immediately knew her parents weren’t there.

The lights were off. The living room was empty, a hospital blanket tossed over the back of the couch. A half-drunk cup of coffee sat on the table, lipstick mark dried at the rim.

She dropped her backpack with a thud and stood in the middle of the room, listening to the silence.

They were at the hospital. Again.

She trudged to the kitchen, grabbed a granola bar, and stared at the calendar on the wall. On Thursday, she’d written HONORS ASSEMBLY in purple marker, dotted the I with a tiny heart.

“Mom, Dad,” she had said last week, sitting at the edge of Shauna’s hospital bed while the machines hummed. “I have an honors assembly coming up. If you want to come.”

Her mom had pressed a cool hand to Shauna’s forehead. “I don’t think we’re going to be able to make it, honey,” she’d said. “We’re just going to be too exhausted.”

Too exhausted.

“You can never make anything anymore,” Tess had muttered. “Like, ever.”

“Well, right now there are more important things,” her dad had snapped.

“Like Shauna,” Tess said. “Right?”

He’d looked at her like she’d kicked a puppy. “Hey. Watch the attitude.”

“I bet you wouldn’t notice if I was the one dying,” she’d said, and then bolted out of the room before the tears spilled.

The words had tasted uglier than she expected. They still echoed in her head now, in the empty kitchen.

She bit into the granola bar. It tasted like cardboard.

In her room, the printed email from her English teacher sat propped up on her desk.

We are thrilled to announce that your short story has placed FIRST in this year’s competition. You’ve been invited to read your story at the district showcase.

She’d stared at the words, heart pounding, and then done what she always did: she’d printed it out and taped it to the edge of her mirror, hoping someday someone else in the house would notice.

The first time Miles cried in front of the hospital therapist, he hated himself for it.

He sat in the small office, staring at the arrangement of tissue boxes and inspirational posters. One showed a mountain with the caption: “It’s always darkest before the dawn.” Another featured a beach and the words: “Healing takes time.”

“So,” the therapist said. “Tell me about your grandmother.”

He swallowed hard. “She was… she was the one who really raised me,” he said. “After my mom left, she, you know, stepped in. She was always there.”

The therapist nodded. “I understand you and your grandmother were very close. I’m sure that makes this loss particularly difficult. How are you adjusting?”

His throat tightened. For a second, another voice ripped through his memory:

Quit your crying. I’m trying to sleep here. Just toughen up, Miles.

His dad, sitting in his recliner, beer can on the table, breathing out disappointment like smoke.

“Miles?” the therapist prompted gently. “Still with me?”

He blinked the memory away. “Yeah,” he said hoarsely. “It’s been… rough. My dad’s always pushing me to be his idea of a ‘man’. He’s got me volunteering here. Says it’ll look good on college apps.”

“Do you know what you’d like to study in college?” the therapist asked.

“Not really,” Miles admitted. “I don’t even know if I want to go to college. I don’t know what I want to do with my life. Right now it all seems… kind of pointless.”

That was the closest he’d come to saying out loud what had been circling his mind for months: people die anyway. They get sick. They leave. What was the point of planning anything?

There was a knock on the door. The therapist glanced at the clock.

“I won’t keep you any longer,” she said. “You’ve been very honest. That’s a good step.”

He left the office, feeling both lighter and heavier.

Down the hall, as if the hospital were some strange universe that bent time, Shauna was experimenting with a new joke about her blood pressure.

“My nurse says it’s too calm,” she told the girl in the room next door. “Like, sorry, I’m just chill about my situation.”

The other girl laughed. Shauna grinned.

Some days, the laughter felt real. Some days it felt like a costume.

But she kept wearing it.

The next time Miles went to pick up trays in B-wing, Shauna’s room was quiet. Her bed was made. The TV was off. For a second, his heart slammed into his ribs.

“Hey,” a nurse said, catching his look. “Relax. She’s down getting more scans.”

“Oh,” he said softly.

“You like her, don’t you?” the nurse teased.

He opened his mouth to deny it, but the words wouldn’t come.

“Her sister came by earlier,” the nurse added, lowering her voice. “Tess. That kid’s got spark. She acts like she’s fine, but you can tell she’s carrying more than she should.”

Miles pictured a girl his age with tired eyes and ink-stained fingers wandering the hospital hallways unseen. He thought about how many times he’d walked past families like that without realizing there were whole side stories happening in the background.

Later that day, he saw the background story up close.

Tess sat in the principal’s office, hands folded in her lap. The walls were lined with pennants from American colleges—Harvard, UCLA, Texas. Posters reminded students to “Choose Kindness” and “Stand Up, Speak Out.”

She stared at a spot on the carpet until it blurred.

“Look,” the principal said gently from behind his desk. “You’re a great student. Your teachers adore you. But this kind of behavior—pushing another student—it’s unacceptable.”

“She knocked my books out of my hands,” Tess said softly.

“That doesn’t make it okay to put your hands on her,” he replied. “How are things at home?”

She laughed once, a short, bitter sound. “My parents aren’t coming, are they?” she said. “They never are. I might as well walk home.”

There was a knock on the door. The principal stood. “Actually,” he said, “they’re here.”

The door opened. Her mom and dad walked in, still in hospital visitor badges and faded clothes.

“Great job,” her mom said with forced brightness. “You’re right on time… for the meeting.”

“Cut the attitude, missy,” her dad added. “We got here as fast as we could.”

“You mean as fast as you wanted to,” Tess shot back.

“We don’t have time for this, Tess,” her dad snapped. “Get in the car.”

“Exactly my point,” she said. “You don’t have time for me.”

Her mom closed her eyes, like she could will the words away.

Nobody noticed the principal, standing there thinking he’d never seen a more lonely kid in a room full of people.

If there was one thing Shauna had learned in the hospital, it was that people eventually stopped talking to you like a normal person.

Families spoke in whispers outside her door. Nurses lowered their voices. Everyone said things like “how are we feeling today?” as if she and the team of specialists in lab coats were one entity.

But Miles never did.

“You don’t have to help me,” she said one evening, watching him stack chairs after a support group. “You should go get some rest.”

“Come on,” he said. “I’m not that fragile.”

“You’re the one who’s been on your feet for six hours,” he pointed out.

“And I’m tired of people treating me like I’m made of glass,” she said. “Last time I checked, I’m not. So if I want to help a cute boy clean up, I’m going to help a cute boy clean up.”

He dropped the stack of brochures. “Cute?” he repeated.

She grinned. “Don’t get weird about it.”

Moments like that had become the bright spots in her days—tiny, ordinary scenes that almost made her forget the gravity in every doctor’s gaze.

Her parents, though, hadn’t forgotten for a second.

They walked in to find her handing Miles a stack of chairs.

“Shauna, what is this?” her dad demanded. “Sweetheart, you should be resting, not doing free labor.”

“It’s not—” Miles started.

“Come on,” her mom said, forcing a smile. “Let’s go. You need your rest.”

As they led her away, Shauna twisted in the wheelchair. “Hey, volunteer guy,” she called to Miles. “My favorite flowers are orange roses. Room B790.”

He blinked. “Got it,” he said.

Later that night, Tess walked into the hospital, clutching a paper bag with leftover takeout. She stopped when she saw a small bouquet of orange roses on the nurses’ counter.

“Who are these for?” she asked.

“Your sister,” the nurse said. “From one of the volunteers.”

Tess stared at the flowers, at the little card that only said: For the girl who loves storms and cameras.

She swallowed hard. “Thanks,” she said quietly, even though the boy who’d left them was nowhere in sight.

Two days later, Tess stood in the doorway of Shauna’s room, twisting the strap of her backpack. “Mom, Dad,” she said. “I kind of… won something. My short story placed first. There’s a showcase on Thursday at six. Do you guys want to come?”

Her mom’s face lit up for half a second—then fell. “With everything going on… we can’t make any promises, sweetheart.”

“Maybe next time,” her dad added. “Okay?”

“What do you mean next time?” Shauna said from the bed. “She won first place. That’s not something you just skip.”

“We’re not skipping,” her dad insisted. “We’re just—”

“Yes, you are,” Shauna interrupted. “You’ve skipped her a hundred times already.”

“Shauna, please,” their mom said weakly.

“This isn’t about skipping anything,” their dad said. “This is about keeping you safe.”

“You can’t keep me safe!” Shauna burst out. “I’m sick, Dad. Everyone knows it. You always say ‘next time,’ but there’s never a next time. You miss everything.”

Her parents fell silent, as if someone had cut the sound in a movie.

“Tess,” her mom whispered, turning. “That’s not true.”

“Yes, it is,” Tess said, her voice shaking. “You’re missing me. You’re never around. It’s like you forgot I exist.”

She turned and walked out before her face crumpled.

In the hallway, she leaned against the wall and slid down until she was sitting on the cold tile.

She wasn’t the one with the IV pole. She didn’t have scans of her brain on a screen. Nobody was going to call her condition life-threatening.

But she felt like something in her was fading all the same.

The day of the showcase, the auditorium at the district performing arts center buzzed with chatter. Parents in jeans and business suits found seats, balancing Starbucks cups and programs. A big American flag hung near the stage, illuminated by stage lights.

Backstage, Tess paced in her best dress, clutching her printed story. She peeked out through the curtain.

She saw the rows of seats fill up. She saw classmates hugging their parents. She saw one of the bullies smirk and gesture at her empty row.

She did not see her mom and dad.

Of course she didn’t.

She bit her lip until she tasted metal, then forced herself to breathe.

The host called her name.

“Once upon a time,” Tess began, her voice steady despite herself, “in a golden castle, there lived two princesses…”

Her story spun out into the air—a tale of two sisters, one loved loudly and one loved quietly. One whose life was measured in grains of sand in an hourglass, another whose world shrank as the tower grew taller.

The audience leaned in. Even the kids who’d whispered about her earlier fell silent.

As she read the last line—“The true tragedy isn’t having too little time, but forgetting how to spend the time you have”—she looked up, expecting to see only strangers.

Her gaze caught on a familiar beanie in the back row.

Shauna.

Shauna, wrapped in a blanket, cheeks pale, eyes bright. A nurse hovered behind her wheelchair. Her parents sat on each side, hands pressed to their mouths as if the words were physically hitting them.

When Tess finished, the applause felt like a wave.

She stepped off the stage on shaky legs.

In the hallway afterward, Shauna caught her in a hug that squeezed the air from her lungs.

“I am so proud of you,” Shauna whispered. “You are so talented.”

Their parents joined them, their faces wet.

“We are so sorry,” their mom said, cupping Tess’s face. “So sorry we ever made you feel like you were second. You’re not. You never were.”

“We messed up,” their dad admitted. “We thought focusing on your sister was the only way to show we cared. But we forgot… we have two daughters.”

Tess’s eyes filled. For the first time in a long time, she let herself believe they might really mean it.

A week later, Shauna sat at the edge of her hospital bed, fingers nervously smoothing the blanket. “Mom, Dad,” she said. “We were just thinking. For my eighteenth birthday… I’d love to go to Iceland. With Tess.”

“Absolutely not,” her dad said immediately. “No way. That’s ridiculous. You can’t travel like this.”

“Actually,” her doctor said gently from the doorway, “with planning and medication management, it could be possible. It would take work, but—”

“We are not sending our daughter across the world,” her dad insisted. “This is serious. This isn’t a vacation.”

“I know that,” Shauna said. “I don’t want a vacation. I just want to live. Really live. Even a little. While I can.”

Her parents looked at each other. For the first time, something like fear and hope tangled in their faces instead of just fear.

Later, as the machines hummed soft lullabies and the hallway lights dimmed, Shauna called Tess over.

“I need you to make me a deal,” she whispered.

“Okay,” Tess said, leaning in.

“If I can’t go to Iceland,” Shauna said, “I at least want to go to your next showcase. Promise me if I’m still here, you’ll let me wheel myself right to the front row.”

Tess laughed through her tears. “You’ll be there,” she said. “And when you get your way about Iceland, I’ll be there too, pretending not to cry when you see the northern lights.”

On one of those golden California afternoons where everything looked like a postcard, Miles and Shauna sat on a bench in the hospital garden. Officially, they called it “approved supervised outdoor time.” Unofficially, it felt like stolen freedom.

The path wound between trimmed hedges. Somewhere beyond the fence, traffic hummed along the freeway. Above them, the sky stretched endlessly blue.

“How do you do it?” he asked, watching her adjust the settings on her camera. “You’re always… you know… upbeat.”

She snorted. “That is definitely not true,” she said. “I have entire days where I just lie in bed and stare at the ceiling thinking about all the stuff I’ll miss. But… I try not to live there.”

“Yeah?” he said.

“Photography helps,” she said, snapping a picture of his profile. “Life is like a viewfinder. You decide what you focus on. The rest is still there—the bad scans, the scary words—but you don’t have to let that be every frame.”

“Don’t take a picture of me,” he groaned. “I look terrible.”

“I love a good candid,” she said. “Besides, I noticed there weren’t any photos of you on your wall.”

“I prefer to be behind the camera,” he said.

“What about you?” she asked. “If you could go anywhere in the world, right now, no plane tickets, no visas, just teleport… where would you go?”

He thought about it for a second. “Honestly? I never really thought about it.”

“You’ve never thought about where you’d go?” she said, scandalized. “What did they teach you in American schools?”

He considered. “My dad wants me to go into finance,” he muttered. “He says numbers never disappoint you.”

“That’s not what I asked,” she said softly. “It’s your life, Miles. What do you want?”

The question startled him. It felt like it had weight, like a gift being placed carefully in his hands.

“I don’t know,” he admitted. “I didn’t know, anyway. But when you talk about Iceland and the northern lights and traveling for National Geographic… it makes me think… maybe I’d like to see the world too. Maybe I want more than a cubicle.”

“Then put that in your viewfinder,” she said. “Start there.”

He looked at her, at the girl who talked about dying wishes like they were just items on a to-do list.

He realized then that he didn’t just like her.

He loved her.

The day the doctors cleared Shauna for Iceland, the hospital room exploded with noise. Her parents cried openly, the doctor grinned, the nurse clapped.

“You can go,” her dad said, voice cracking. “On one condition.”

She eyed him warily. “What?”

“You consider one last treatment before you leave,” he said. “It’s a new protocol. Less intense. It might not do much. But it might. And you call us. Constantly. Answer every time we call.”

She smiled through tears. “Deal,” she said.

Tess grabbed her hand. “Iceland,” she whispered. “We’re really going.”

At home, across town, Miles stood in the kitchen, his father’s voice rising like a storm.

“You just got access to your college trust and you want to waste it on travel?” his dad demanded. “Going off to some icy rock with a girl you met in a hospital? You need to get a grip if you want to make anything of your life.”

“You mean if I want to make anything of the life you’ve planned,” Miles said quietly.

His dad’s face hardened. “You are being foolish. You think flowers and soft words change anything? People take and take until there’s nothing left. You’ll learn, just like I did.”

“Maybe I’ll learn something different,” Miles said, surprising himself. His heart hammered in his chest, but the words kept coming. “I don’t want finance. Or your idea of being ‘tough.’ You were barely around enough to raise me, so forgive me if I don’t want to copy your blueprint.”

His dad stared at him, stunned.

“I’m on my own path,” Miles said. “And it’s not the one you’re on.”

He picked up his backpack and walked out.

Outside, the American sky stretched wide over the neat California cul-de-sacs. For the first time, he believed it might hold something for him that wasn’t just expectation.

Iceland didn’t look real when they stepped off the plane. The sky was a deep, inky blue. The air tasted cleaner than anything they’d breathed in months. Snow-dusting on black rock made the landscape look like a black-and-white photo.

“Wow,” Tess whispered, clutching her coat tight. “This is insane.”

“I know,” Shauna said, her voice full of wonder. “It’s perfect.”

They took a tour out into the countryside, where the sky stretched over fields of snow and jagged hills. The tour guide talked about tectonic plates and volcanic activity. None of them really listened.

That night, standing in a field that looked like the edge of the world, they watched as the sky came alive.

Ribbons of green and purple light rippled overhead—the northern lights, dancing like the universe was showing off.

Is it everything you hoped it would be?” Miles asked softly.

“It’s better,” Shauna whispered. Her cheeks glowed, her eyes wide, the aurora reflected in them. “It’s like the sky is finally showing us all the storms it’s been holding.”

She lifted her camera, fingers steady, and took shot after shot—of the sky, of Tess laughing, of Miles with his head tilted back.

“Don’t take any pictures of me,” he protested. “I’m crying.”

“I love a good candid,” she said, laughing.

He turned to her. “Shauna,” he said, his voice shaking. “I love you.”

She smiled as if she’d been waiting to hear those words her whole life. “I love you too,” she said.

Her phone buzzed in her pocket. She glanced at the screen.

“Mom,” she said, answering. “You would not believe how beautiful it is. I wish you could—”

She stopped. Her face went still.

“What?” Tess asked. “What is it? What’s wrong?”

Shauna’s eyes filled. Her lips trembled.

“Are you sure?” she whispered into the phone. “Are you… absolutely sure?”

There was a long pause.

Then, slowly, a smile began to spread across her face—small at first, then wider, like the colors blooming across the sky.

She lowered the phone, laughing and crying at the same time.

“It’s in remission,” she gasped. “The cancer. It’s in remission.”

Miles stared. Tess clapped a hand over her mouth.

“Oh my gosh,” Tess whispered. “Oh my gosh, oh my gosh.”

They collapsed into a tangled hug—Shauna pressed between them, one arm around each neck. Above them, the lights kept swirling green and gold across the Icelandic sky, as if the whole universe was celebrating.

For a moment, the hospital, the missed assemblies, the harsh words, the treatment plans—all of it felt very far away.

In that field at the edge of the world, three American teenagers stood under the northern lights, laughing and crying and holding on to each other with everything they had.

The future was still uncertain. Life always would be.

But for the first time in a very long time, it didn’t feel like a storm waiting to break.

It felt like a sky full of color, full of cracks where sunlight—and maybe even starlight—could pour through.