"The Girl with No Tomorrow"

The clock on the hospital wall ticked too loudly, as if it had something to prove. Amara lay in the narrow bed, staring at the ceiling, where the paint was cracked and dull. Time moved forward for everyone else, but for her, it had stopped.

The diagnosis had been brutal. Stage four. Metastatic. The cancer had spread too far, too fast. The doctors used soft voices and words like “palliative,” “comfort,” and “acceptance.” No one dared say "cure" anymore. Her body, once lively and strong, had become fragile, her days measured in quiet moments and morphine doses.

Seventeen years old, and the world had already given her an expiration date.

Her mother tried to stay strong. Always there with warm soup she never finished, prayers whispered under breath, and hopeful smiles that trembled at the corners. But Amara saw through it. Everyone did. No one could hide from the truth: she had no tomorrow.

One gray afternoon, a knock came at her door. She didn’t answer—it was probably another nurse with another test—but the door creaked open anyway.

“Hey,” said a voice, bright and unfamiliar. “Mind if I sit?”

She looked up to see a boy her age, maybe a little older, carrying a chessboard under his arm. He had messy hair, a backpack slung carelessly over one shoulder, and a grin like he didn’t belong anywhere near sickness or sorrow.

“I didn’t ask for a volunteer,” she mumbled.

“I know. But I heard you were good at games.”

“Not anymore.”

“Then I’ll win easy.”

She stared at him. He didn’t flinch. Instead, he set the board on the table beside her and began arranging the pieces.

“My name’s Leo,” he said. “I come here Tuesdays and Thursdays. I bring games, bad jokes, and snacks I’m not supposed to sneak in.”

Amara didn’t respond, but she watched as he set up the chessboard anyway. She hadn’t played in months. What was the point? But something about the way he didn’t treat her like she was fragile or broken intrigued her.

After a long silence, she reached out and moved a pawn.

He grinned. “That’s more like it.”

And so it began.

Leo returned twice a week without fail. Some days they played cards, some days they just talked. He never asked about her illness. Never looked at her with pity. He joked, teased, challenged her mind—treated her like she was still a person, not just a patient.

One day, while rain tapped against the window, he asked her, “What would you do if you had all the time in the world?”

She didn’t answer right away.

“I used to want to travel,” she finally said. “Draw the world. Cities. Mountains. Oceans. I wanted to fill sketchbooks with things I saw with my own eyes.”

“Why don’t you still?”

She looked at the IV tube in her arm. “There’s no point. I won’t get to see them.”

Leo was quiet for a moment. Then he stood up and grabbed her sketchbook from the drawer.

“Then let’s see what we can,” he said. “If we can’t go to the world, we’ll bring it here.”

From then on, every visit, he brought something new. Photos of places he’d printed, descriptions of faraway towns, the scent of spices in small vials from international markets. He made her draw Morocco, Kyoto, Venice, the Northern Lights—places she’d only ever dreamed of.

And Amara came alive.

Her hands, though weak, moved with purpose again. Her smile, once hidden, returned. She laughed. She cursed when a line went wrong. She asked questions. She forgot, for brief moments, that her body was failing her.

But still, the pain always returned. So did the nausea. And every few days, the doctors reminded her, gently, that there were “no new treatments” left.

One evening, after a particularly bad spell, she asked Leo, “Do you ever think it’s better not to know?”

“Know what?”

“That you’re dying.”

He was quiet. Then he looked her in the eyes and said, “Maybe. But knowing you have so little time makes every second matter more.”

She nodded. “Then I want one day that feels like a whole life.”

Leo’s eyes lit up. “Then we’ll make it happen.”

They planned it in secret with help from the nurses. One sunny morning, with a wheelchair, a backpack full of supplies, and a signed day-pass, Amara left the hospital.

They went to the city gardens. She wore a scarf over her bald head, sunglasses too big for her face, and the widest smile anyone had seen in months. They fed birds. They ate mango ice cream. She sketched people dancing to a street musician’s violin.

At sunset, Leo wheeled her up to a hill where they could see the sky stretch wide. She leaned against his shoulder, exhausted but glowing.

“Thank you,” she whispered. “For giving me this.”

“I didn’t give you anything,” he said. “You just finally took what was yours.”

That night, back in her room, she opened her sketchbook one last time. She drew herself not as a patient, but as a girl standing tall on a cliff, wind in her hair, eyes open to the horizon. There was no IV, no hospital walls. Just freedom.

The next morning, Amara didn’t wake up.

The nurses found her with her sketchbook still in her lap and a smile on her face.

She hadn’t made it to tomorrow.

But she had lived the day before it fully, wildly, beautifully.

And in the end, maybe that was enough.