I was still in High School when I started fading.

Not even my fault, just one pill ruined everything, made me sick forever. Between the haze of medicines and treatments, all the struggles of trying to stay in High School, I hadn’t realized that I had given up.

Slowly, I had gotten afraid of trying; if I were to fail, it would be more pain, and in that, I had begun to give up. I didn’t realize how far things had gone until the doctor warned me that if things didn’t get better, I’d be in the hospital. So I tried, but not enough, and I knew this.

A month passed, and I was right where he said I’d be. I shook all the time. My blood pressure tanked. My weight was abysmally low, and bruises appeared everywhere. I couldn’t eat. Couldn’t really sleep.

No one knew what was wrong. No one could fix it.

Every time I breathed, I feared it would be my last. When I closed my eyes at night, I thought it would be my last. I was never going to graduate. Never going to go to college, or get a job, or fall in love.

I’d always loved the stars. No matter how horrible things got, all the changes I went through, they were always there. A reminder of resilience, the stars appeared day after day. Living in the suburbs meant I rarely ever got to see many. Certainly, none appeared outside the hospital window. But I wasn’t going to leave without seeing the sea of stars.

If I had no other reason to try to live, to keep fighting, I had this. I wanted to see the stars again. So I closed my eyes, and I woke up the next day. No matter how much it hurt, I tried to eat. I forced myself to keep trying.

Soon, I was strong enough to live on my own.

3 months later, the sky lit up with a thousand stars, keeping its promise to me. I kept my promise to myself. I keep trying, if for no reason than to see the stars.