It was only the first day of summer vacation, but those days always came with their own fear. Fear of growing up, or of falling out of love. Anyone knows that the worst form of fear than anyone could have would be any form of rational ones.

His fear was becoming his parents. They were both bitter, cold, harsh, and, worst of all, full of fear of death.

He remembered when his father left them. His mother was to die not ten years from then. At this time, he still had her, and he would only learn of it when she would die in his arms the summer of 2029.

It was an upsetting day for the family -by which I mean his mother, sister, and two cousins - when Reese's father died.

He made it home and plopped onto the couch. In the corner of his eye, he spotted him. Adam Culligan, Reese's father for fourteen years.

They came home from the hospital that day. Reese turned numb from seeing his own father being taken off of life support. Of course, they thought cancer itself was under control, even as they saw it spread. Many of your cells are actually just microbial cells completely separate from you, but they do nothing compared to what cancer does to you. Cancer just tries its best to survive, just like he did.

Reese saw him die that day. Alli, Reese's sister, tried to fill the open air with her music, but she could still hear his absence. 

The sun was starting to set, leaving burning red shades in the sky; the heavens above let themselves be alarmed by his presence in it.

Cancer's whole problem is that it's still treated like a lifestyle choice.

"You shouldn't have been smoking!"

"You should eat healthier!"

"If you do this, it'll help you detox!"

Sometimes people need to realize that the sun sets whether we like it to or not. The dark of light comes to cleanse everything, you need to accept that you can never control when you die.

The sun was almost gone now; the outside world was bathed in the light of the moon and a billion stars.

When he left, he requested to be cremated. The family split on whether to dump him in the Floridian gulf, or in another country in some mountain. Reese's family argued the case that the ashes would better spread in the ecosystem if in the ocean. Regardless, Reese's family and Reese's cousin's family split the ashes down the middle. One of Reese's cousins, Anthony, put it in a locket. Reese can only talk with him through text because their parents refuse to talk.

A little fun fact about spreading ashes is that bones and bone fragments still somehow exist. Make sure to throw downwind, and close your mouth when throwing! When they threw him, a piece of something hit Reese's cheek.

Reese always panicked when his father tried to say goodbye, and this was no different.

Off in the distance, Reese saw some smaller girl jump off a cliff, but disappear as soon as he blinked. He disregarded this at the time, but he wrote down in a notebook later that she had blonde hair, and looked only a year or two younger than him. 

That night in Florida, he sat at the edge of his bed. He decided that if he was going to kill himself, which he surely wouldn't do right now, he would have one day a year to choose whether or not to actually do it. He grabbed a sharpie and wrote a month and a day on his left forearm. It wasn't his birthday, but instead his newly found death day.

About two weeks past and Reese's family trip ended. They went home on a better note. 

Reese and his sister thanked their father for the trip. They really needed the vacation.