Looking for Alaska

SUMMER

She sat there smoking in a lawn chair with dandelions tangled around her legs. Her flip flops where dangling by her toes. I sat down in the lawn chair next to her and waited for her to speak first, like she always did, but this time she didn't say anything.

"Why do you smoke?" I asked casually, "it's not even that great"

"Yeah," she said looking down, "the taste is shitty and it does shitty things but there's nothing else that I can hold in my hand and let it tell me how many days I have left to live,"

I sat there thinking about what she said. I pulled out a cigarette to help me think, "But it doesn't actually tell you," I said trying to hid my confusion, "it just helps you get to the end quicker."

"It might not tell you but oh, does it tell me," she said with a curious smile. We were silent for a few minutes before she spoke again.

"I have a limited amount of days left so hurry up and get finished with your smoke or else all my days are gonna be spent here, waiting for you to finish," she said. She stood up looking tired and stepped on the dandelions and then walked away. I didn't follow her, I sat there smoking, thinking about what she said. I concluded that she was crazy.

WINTER

"But don't you get it Teddy, we're free! We could go smoking in broad daylight, we can do what we want!" Alaska said, backing away from me with a big grin on her face, she looked at me and started to run, "Come on Teddy, there's so much to do!" she yelled. I ran after her and found her stopped in front of a big lake.

"No," I said, "No, no, no. I know what you're thinking and that water must be at least 10 degrees below freezing."

"Just jump in with me," she said not moving her gaze, she stuck her hand out towards me and I couldn't help but grab it, "On the count of three," she said. But before she could start counting she jumped right in and pulled me along. The water felt like a million pricks piercing into my skin. I pushed myself upward for air and found Alaska already up.

"Wasn't that great?" She said with an estatic expression that you couldn't help but go along with, "I just feel so great."

"Yeah, I guess it wasn't that bad," I said. But it really was. It was worse than I imagined, but seeing her face like that when the sun was creeping through the trees around us and the wind was blowing her wet hair side to side, I couldn't say what I thought. She swam to the land and walked out. For a second I thought she was gonna run away and leave me in the freezing cold water, but she didn't. She just started to spin around in circles and yell really loud, "THIS IS WHAT IT FEELS LIKE TO BE FREE!" and I honestly had no clue why she was so happy today about not being on campus. We've left it plenty of times before, but today she was just...glowing. "Teddy, stop staring at me like a weirdo and get out of the water." I did what she said and walked out, my clothes felt heavier than usual and the water kept dripping down my back. As soon as I got out she linked arms with me, "Okay, this is the plan. First we go to downtown, then we go to this really cool spot that I know, and then we -"

"Are we gonna be walking around with our dripping clothes during all this?" I asked, interrupting her. I instantly regretted asking when she gave me a death glare.

"No, I brought us extra clothes in the car," she said in a monotone, "as I was saying..." she continued talking but I stopped listening. I really liked this day so far. Doing things we've never done before with such ease, and doing things we always do with an excitement. I don't know, this all seemed so vaguely familiar to me. Not in a way where I've seen all of this and done it all, but in a way where this is the way that I've imagined things would be when I was happy. And I was really glad I got to live through my daydream. Because a lot of people don't.