They're seventeen when she's diagnosed. Still babies. She'll die still a baby.

It's terminal. They give her seven months to live. When she calls him to tell him, she sounds strong.

He drops the phone as his knees give out and he falls to the ground. He knows she hears his screams and sobs; he doesn't bother to hang up the phone.

She's too young, too smart, too beautiful. She has too much to live for. She's supposed to go to her dream college, get her dream job, marry her dream man, raise her dream family, live all the dreams he's been listening to her talk about since they were kids. She can't do all that in seven months.

She shows up at his house a few minutes later, and it's a good thing she knows where they keep the spare key because he's sobbing so hard he can hardly breathe, much less get up and answer the door.

She helps him off the floor, and he pulls her into his chest burying his hands in her hair and his face in her neck. He shakes with sobs and his tears are soaking her shirt, but she just rubs his back and pets his hair and lets him hold her, though his arms are so tight around her that she doesn't have much of a choice.

When his knees give out again, she catches him. Well, kind of. She manages to hold him up for a few seconds before they collapse on the floor.

"Shhhh," she says gently as she holds his sobbing form to her chest and strokes his hair.

"You-you can't-you-Ally," he blubbers between sobs, his grip on her tightening.

"Shhhh, Austin," she whispers. "It's okay."

"No it's not!" he screams, pulling away from her. "It's not fair! It's not fair!"

She takes his red, tearstained face in her hands, tries to dry his cheeks with her thumbs. He searches her eyes. Her bright, beautiful, lovely, alive eyes.

Seven months. Too much to do, too much to say, too little time.

"How could you do this to me?!" he shouts, his voice breaking and shaking as tears continue to pour down his cheeks.

"Austin, I promise I didn't mean to," she says gently, her eyes dancing with light and color and dare he say it, amusement.

"Why are you so happy?! You're dying!"

"Not for another seven months."

He doesn't say anything as the tears continue to roll down his face and he looks at her, takes her in, maybe for the last time as the Ally he knows before she's all treatments and tubes and medication as they try to prolong her doomed life.

"That's not long enough," he whispers, his voice too weak and his heart too broken to speak any louder.

"It'll have to be," she whispers back, giving him a small smile.

His world is crashing down. His best friend is dying. She has seven months to live, seven months left to try to make as many of her dreams a reality as she can. This girl, this beautiful, kind, amazing girl, has less than a fraction of the time she deserves.

And yet she's the one comforting him, and she's the one smiling.

He breaks down all over again, pulling her as close as possible and then some. She strokes his hair again and he squeezes her tighter. She probably can't even breathe with how tight his grip is, but she doesn't complain.

He shuts his eyes tightly, trying to force himself to wake up from this nightmare. It doesn't work.

It takes him a few weeks to go back to normal. (Or as normal as he can be with a tiny voice in the back of his mind constantly reminding him that his best friend is dying.) But he does eventually manage to stop crying every time he thinks about her, and he learns to live in the moment without thinking about their dark future.

It's the middle of the night, and they're out in a random field an hour away from his house. Why? Well, she's insane and decided to come knocking on his window in the middle of the night, and he can't say no to her.

Plus, he knows that she's always wanted to sneak out and drive somewhere out of the way to go stargazing in the middle of the night. She's been camping once, when she was little, and all she remembers is how beautiful the stars were. He knows this because she talks about it all the time.

They're lying on the blanket she brought, her head on his stomach. He plays with her hair absently and stares at the infinity above him.

"It really is beautiful, isn't it?" Ally says quietly.

"Yeah," he whispers back.

"Do you think there are people up there?"

"Astronauts."

"I'm serious, Austin. Do you think there's a life after death?"

"Ally, can we not-"

"Answer my question."

"I-I don't know. Maybe. I hope."

"Me too. If there is, I'm gonna wait for you, okay?"

"Yeah, okay."

He closes his eyes, not allowing himself to cry. He focuses on combing his fingers through her hair, on the cool breeze that makes her shiver occasionally, on the sound of her steady breathing, on the feeling of his heartbeat in his chest.

But then he suddenly can't take it anymore and it hits him that they won't be able to do this for much longer because she'll be too weak. It hits him that by the time her birthday rolls around she's already gonna be gone and it hits him that he isn't sure he can live without her.

It hits him that by the time he works up the courage to tell her he loves her, it'll be too late.

He sits up quickly, and she does the same, turning to look at him worriedly.

"Austin, are you okay?"

He looks her in the eyes. "I love you."

She doesn't speak, but her eyes are wide.

Now that it's out in the open, he realizes how much he loves her, and how soon he's gonna lose her. He tries to be strong, he really does, but everything hits him all over again and he starts breaking down.

She's used to this by now, so before a single tear can escape his eyes she's already holding him, combing her fingers through his hair in the way she's learned helps calm him down. He wraps his arms around her tightly, squeezing his eyes shut and trying not to let himself cry.

The result of trying to hold it in is short, uneven gasps for air in between hiccups and strained sobs that make his chest hurt even more than it already does.

She doesn't say anything, and he's grateful for it.

Eventually, he does calm down (faster than he did in the first week or so when it still didn't feel like reality) and she pulls away to look at him.

She gives him that comforting, encouraging smile he's grown so accustomed to and whispers, "Hey. We've got six and a half months left, and I love you too."

"You do?" he whispers back.

"Mmhm."

"Well…will you be my girlfriend?"

She sighs, her smile fading. "Austin, I don't think we should put any labels on it. We can do whatever you wanna do, but I think it'll hurt less for you if I'm not your girlfriend."

He lets go of her. "I love you, Ally. You dying is gonna feel like my own painful apocalypse whether I call you my girlfriend or not. Even if I'm calling you my best friend till your last breath, the pain of you leaving isn't going to be any less than if I call you my girlfriend. But I've been dreaming of getting to call you my girlfriend for…I don't even know how long. I'm trying to help you live as many of your dreams as we can, and you say you love me too, so it shouldn't be too hard for you to help me live mine."

"I don't wanna hurt you."

"Ally, quit it with not wanting to hurt me! No matter what happens, it is going to kill me when you're gone. Nothing is going to change that, and you can't do anything about it! What you can do is lessen the pain now. When you die, I am going to regret a lot of things. Not telling you sooner, not telling you enough, and a million other things I can't even think about right now. But one regret that we can fix is if I never get to be your boyfriend. And the less regrets I have, maybe the less pain I'll be in."

She looks at him and takes a deep breath. "Okay. But I must warn you, this relationship isn't gonna have a happy ending."

"I don't need a happy ending. I just need a happy story to go back and reread."

"You're getting wiser."

"About time, after hanging out with you for so long," he says.

She smiles. "Hey, I could be wrong you know. If there really is an afterlife, we could be together again in a few decades. Just you, me, and the stars."

He looks up at the sky and smiles a bit. "Yeah, that'd be nice, wouldn't it?"

"Gives us something to hope for."

He closes his eyes. "Hope. I need some of that."

She presses her lips to his and he thinks that maybe, just maybe, he might've found some.

She's getting weaker, he can tell. She tries to hide it in front of him, but he can see it in her eyes. They're still twinkling, shining, dancing, beautiful, but they're not as bright as they used to be. They're slowly starting to become clouded with pain and worry.

She's worried, not scared. No, she isn't afraid of dying. He asked her that a while ago, before they knew that they were so close to the end of her days. She isn't afraid of death. She's worried about how her death will affect everyone else. She's worried about how her mother will feel when she looks into her room and sees it spotless, unchanging, collecting dust. She's worried about how her father will be able to stand going to work every day, knowing that he doesn't have his daughter waiting at home for him to watch their favorite TV show. She's worried about him, how he'll even be able to function without her.

He's worried about that, too.

He spends every day with her, tells her he loves her at least once every five minutes, even sleeps over at her house a few times (the term sleep being used quite loosely). But it still isn't enough.

Somehow, though, he manages to forget that she's sick when he's with her. As long as he doesn't focus too much on her dying eyes or pained movements, he can allow himself to push her dwindling number of days left from his mind for a little while. He can be happy.

Until he receives the call that she's been hospitalized after not being able to breathe.

He knows that they're six months in and at this point she could go any day now, but he hasn't really let himself truly think about it until now. Because once again it all becomes real to him and she's actually dying and he's going to be alone soon and he really isn't as prepared for it as he thought he was.

Apparently denial isn't a very great way to prep for your girlfriend's impending death.

He starts telling her he loves her at least once a minute.

And then the day comes and he gets the call. Her mother is in hysterics, but he knows. He can feel it in the emptiness in his chest.

Everything went by too fast. Wasn't it yesterday that she was telling him she had seven more months? Didn't he tell her he loved her just last night when she became his girlfriend? It feels like just a few hours ago she promised him they still had six more months. Was it really that long ago?

He rushes to the hospital in a panic, and when he gets to her room she's somehow still alive. But her parents are a wreck and she doesn't look too great.

Though to him she's still beautiful.

He rushes to her bedside and grabs her hand.

"Ally?"

"Austin," she says weakly, "I love you, okay? I love you more than anything in the whole world. You're my best friend and being your girlfriend these past few months has made everything so much more bearable."

"Stop," he whispers. He can't listen to this. This sounds like a goodbye and she can't possibly be saying goodbye because this isn't the end. It can't be. He refuses to allow it to be.

"But I can't go without knowing that you're gonna be okay. I need you to let me go, Austin, okay?" He can hardly hear her, her voice is so weak.

"No," he says, his eyes filling with tears. "No. I-I can't do that. I need you to stay. I can't live without you."

"Austin, please," she whispers, looking up at him.

"I can't lose you, Ally. I won't. I love you too much and I can't-I can't-"

She squeezes his hand. "You can. This isn't the end. It's you, me, and the stars, remember?"

"Ally…" he says, because it's all he can say. She's flooding his mind. All the memories, both of what they've done and what they should've been able to do.

He looks at her, really looks at her, and then he realizes why his chest feels so empty, why he feels like his heart's already been ripped out even though she's still here.

It's because she actually isn't.

She may still be here, her heart monitor may still be beeping and he may still be able to feel her pulse where he's holding her tiny hand, but she's already gone. He can see it in her eyes. They aren't the big, bright, beautiful, lovely, shining, twinkling, dancing, alive eyes he once knew. They're dull, dead, with no life left in them.

He can beg her to stay all he wants, but she isn't here anymore.

He leans down to kiss her lips one last time and his tears fall onto her porcelain cheeks. When he pulls away, she gives him that smile one last time and squeezes his hand.

"I love you," he whispers.

"I love you too."

"I guess I'm letting you go, Ally. I'll miss you."

She sighs and closes her eyes, and he hears her parents break down even more, but they sound far away. Right now she is the only other person in the world to him.

"I love you, Ally Dawson," he says, because he hasn't said it enough and he wants it to be the last thing that goes through her mind before she's gone completely. "I love you, I love you, I love you, I love you."

The line goes flat, and she's really gone.

First he sobs. Those ugly, painful sobs from seven months ago when she first told him she was dying, but expanded by tenfold. He lunges for her, but the doctors come in and hold him back.

He sobs for days and days and days, and then when the tears are gone he just sits in his bed, staring at the wall. He can't function, can hardly breathe without her.

Nothing feels real. Because nothing should be real. There cannot possibly be a world in existence in which Ally is not by his side. It's impossible.

Her funeral feels even less real. Until he stands up to give his eulogy. He didn't write it down; he couldn't.

"I shouldn't be here," he starts, not bothering to introduce himself or his relation to Ally. Everyone knows. "Neither should any of you. Because Ally should not be in there." He points behind him to the closed casket with his girlfriend inside.

"But she is. The world is unfair like that. So now we're all here, and if there's an afterlife like she hoped there was she's probably up there eating some pickles or popcorn or something and laughing her head off because she knows how stupid we're all gonna feel for crying so hard when we see her again. But for now, I'm gonna say a few words and probably do a lot of crying.

"Ally Dawson is the most incredible human being I have ever met. My life has been blessed just by being able to meet her, but to get to know her, be able to call her my best friend, and then call her my girlfriend, even if it was only for six months and eight days, is a privilege that I don't know what I did to deserve. She is beautiful and kind and selfless and amazing and there will never be anyone else like her until the sun swallows the earth.

"She never asked me for anything. Not once. Until the day she died. She told me that she couldn't leave me without knowing I'd be okay. The one thing she ever asked me for was to let her go. And that took convincing." He chuckles and shakes his head.

"I love her. Life without her feels…well, not exactly like much of a life at all. Actually, I can't really even remember my life before I met her. Maybe it's because she's the reason I actually started living. She is my everything.

"You're all probably wondering why I'm using the present tense. It's simple, really. Just because the Ally Dawson we know is lying in that casket, that doesn't mean she's gone. Because she isn't.

"It took me a few days to realize it, but she's everywhere. She exists in the clouds that she loved to watch, and in the shapes they make. She exists in every pickle you eat. She exists in the music she adored, and in the books she read and reread until she could quote them. She exists in the stars that we see every night, the stars that we were sitting under when she told me she loved me for the first time." He sniffles and wipes his eyes, smiling despite what's going on.

"She exists in all of us, in our memories. And she will keep existing, as long as we remember her. It's cliché, I know, but it's true. I see her in everything, and I'm sure you all do too. She's still with us. Just…maybe not in the way we'd like her to be.

"I am in love with Ally Dawson. I will never cease to be in love with her. She is my best friend, always will be. And I will never forget her."

As soon as he walks to his seat, he breaks down again.

But if he thinks hard enough, he can almost imagine that she's there, just like she always has been.

sorry.