Her hand fell from mine. She looked so pale there, in the hospital bed, as the machine stopped beeping and made one long, flat noise. The nurses rushed in, the doctor called, but I still stared at her hand. Limp and already turning a color that wasn’t her. I didn’t hear anything, didn’t see anything but that hand, and her nails, slowly turning black and curling in on themselves into her palm.

Inside her chest, I knew a similar decay was happening. She was walking down a red path of blood clots, floating like balloons or cherry blossoms that would have been beautiful if they were not so sinister. Her lungs didn’t have a chance, couldn’t purge themselves in time, once the disease set in. I hope I get to walk with her on the path of the clotted cherry blossoms one day.