Dear Red,

I just wanted to tell you I didn't mean the stuff I said yesterday. It's hard enough to deal with cancer, let alone get bullied too. I'm sorry I'm so ignorant. I'll be a better brother, I swear.

Get better soon,

Sebastian

I could tell you a million reasons why my sister is the best sister ever. Honestly, I could just ramble on and tell you why she doesn't deserve the things she goes through. She's amiable, respectful and kind. She has this sort of look on her, maybe the softness in her brown eyes or the little smile she always has on her face, but she always looks approachable. Like you could just talk to her, and she would sit there and listen with no judgement on her face. I love my sister for that.

I sit with my friends during lunch. Red sits with one other friend, Lexi, the only girl nice enough to be her friend. The rest of the school are filled with uncaring idiots that make my blood boil. They treat Red as though she were a heathen. Voices run through my head at the things everyone had said to me before. 'She could die,' one, in particular, seems to stand out. It's not wrong, but the tone in which the prig had said it was the most infuriating part. That's my sister they were talking about. They can't just say that.

I made up my mind that I hated this school long ago. It had kept up this façade of being such an easy-going school, but realistically it was a wolf in sheep's clothing. I look around at the colourful cafeteria that was trying it's hardest to hide its true nature. Rainbows and bejewelled murals covered the walls and the brown tables looked plain next to them. Kids walk around as if they own the place, chatting and screaming over the noise of the packed school. There were way too many kids at this school. Either that or the classrooms are tiny. It's probably because the way they put the tables don't suit the room and we end up just squished into one spot as the teacher tries their best to get the attention of the chatterboxes of students they have. My friend snaps me out of my trance and I look up towards the ceiling because he was pointing at something on there, but I instantly get blinded by the industrial-sized lights dangling from a very unstable looking thread. I blink a couple of times before I regain my eyesight with a couple of weird dots clouding my vision.

I look back to Red, seeing as my friend was too busy laughing at me. She smiles, and I give her the thumbs up. I do that whenever I want to say, "You're doing great!" but can't shout or speak. Her pixie-cut brown hair sort-of hangs over her eyes, and when she turns to speak to Lexi I could see her struggling to keep it out of her face. She used to have long, flowy brown hair that reached her thigh but now that's gone. Red sort of looks like me, except I took Dad's black hair and I'm a shorter guy.

Suddenly I hear a loud scream as Red gets dragged off her chair and pushed onto the ground. For a second, I freeze, and time slows. My heart jumps into my mouth and it beats faster than ever. My brown eyes widen but I manage to snap out of it. I run to my sister and push off the bullies, cursing at them. Red's got tears running down her cheeks as she grips onto me for support. I ask Lexi to take her to the bathroom because I know Lexi would protect her, it's just harder for her now because she hurt her foot.

After the incident at school, Red and I sit with each other, watching TV in comfortable silence. I look at her, and as if she could read my mind she opposes me in my argument. 'Why can't we tell Mum and Dad about this? That's the only question she never addresses, until this very moment. I storm upstairs, screaming and getting screamed at as I slam the door shut and proceed to not leave for a couple of hours. My mind is racing, and my blood is boiling at Red's thought process, but I force myself to calm down.

A couple of days after the fight, Red dies. I was there when her heartbeat stopped, I was there when she felt "really sick". I don't come out of my room. I know that this isn't my fault, but I couldn't help but feel it. I sit in silence, rubbing my temples to try and soothe my headache. I had been getting a lot lately. I refuse to go to school because I know that it would only make everything worse. Then I remember something. Red planted a tree at school when we were in prep. I know she really loved it because whenever we were going home, she'd make me wait while she runs up to it and dumps water on its roots. She really wanted it to have leaves, but everyone would rip off the sprouts of them and sometimes tear off the branches.

It's lunchtime at school and I'm with my friends. I see someone walking up to her tree and I immediately know who it is. I scream and start running up to them faster, then push them to the ground just as they would do to Red. I can't let them destroy the thing she loved. I punch and punch until the teacher rips me off him and we're both still screaming until I'm carried away to the principal's office.

My parents were reasonably appalled at my behaviour. But they soon realised that what I had done was for my sister who I would never see again. Still, they grounded me because there were other ways I could have dealt with the situation, but the forgiving expression on Dad's face had been enough to tell me that he supported me protecting that tree.

I go to school. There were no people except for me since it was the weekend and they were all probably partying or travelling somewhere. I shake the can a bunch before I write my message on the red brick wall behind the tree. Hopefully the others see the pain I had to go through. Hopefully they understand. I write my message in white spray paint, large and clear.

I MISS HER