There's no going back.

I took a deep breath as soon as I got off the train in London, I can't believe I did this. I came to the city that holds my childhood dream in a spontaneous backpack trip that I did to reward myself for all the hard work I did in university. I've been saving money for months, with no plan, no aim just for a day like this to come and from to get a last-minute train ticket from Paris to London after midnight. 

It was around 6 in the morning when I decided to step out of the train station after finishing all the procedure and getting a little something to eat on my way to discovering the dazzling city and a little map to guide me around.

I walked along the long road while holding my map with both of my hands trying to find a clue where the road is taking me, a few minutes later I shrank the map and threw it on the smallest pocket of my backpack, I thought if this trip is supposed to be spontaneous then I'd better let my feet guide me instead of a piece of paper that I barely know how to read.

I took my small digital camera and started taking pictures of the sky, the road, the land and everything that I thought looked beautiful which was almost every aspect of the city reminiscing on the time I used only see it on tv. As I got lost in the beauty of London I barely noticed that I was one of the fewest souls that'd been wandering along with the neighbourhoods when I felt a presence following me, I couldn't succeed in convincing myself that it could be just some random person on their way to work this early in the morning as it kept on following me even after unexpectedly changing my direction a couple of time. 

I followed my speedy anxious feet until they led me to a huge library down the road. I entered without hesitation not knowing if that person was still following me or not. Was it a thief? An abuser? A strange person? Guess I'll never know, I hope I never will. 

 I strolled through the library thinking of how to spend some time there while waiting for the street to be safer as the sun climbs higher. I was never a reader so instead of reading books, I sat on the corner watching people. I looked around to see a few hardworking students studying harder than I ever witnessed, others were sleeping on the top of their books while some elders seemed to ruffle through the pages boringly. 

I eventually got bored of watching people so I took out my phone to quietly take pictures of the aesthetic library, and while arranging a few of the book that has beautiful covers, I stumbled upon a simple thick black book that's called "life." 

I started browsing through the book and on the very first page there was a warning at the bottom of it, it says WARNING! ONCE YOU READ THIS BOOK, THERE'S NO GOING BACK. YOU EITHER FINISH IT OR IT FINISHES YOU. 

"What kind of lame advertising policy is this? But I appreciate the effort" I mumbled as I continued flipping through the pages. The next page had some rules on it, stuff like you have to think it through before writing anything on it, only use the pencil that comes with it, go through everything in order and a lot more rules that didn't really make much sense to me, and at the bottom of that page was a little notice from the library staff with a small pencil stuck next to it. "Here's a pencil, you can write down on the blank spaces of this book to make it more enjoyable for the other readers, you're only allowed to use this pencil." 

The book contains 3 chapters, childhood, teenagehood and adulthood. The first part mentioned how a human being goes through life from being a toddler to becoming a child who knows pretty much most of what's happening in their small environment. After a brief introduction, it carried on talking about the probability of changing something in someone's childhood and its possibility the affect the rest of their life. A few pages later, there were a few questions that seemed to be answered by a few people and more blank space. 

I read the answers and one of them seemed to capture my attention. Write something you'd like to change about your childhood. -To have never existed" replied someone. 

I thought about my childhood for a second but nothing good came up, my parents are still together but they used to fight a lot back then, and compared to now we were kind of poor so I never really got to get what I wanted. I then took the pencil and wrote: "I wish I had different parents."

I then proceeded to the next chapter which was about teenagehood, and in this one, I was asked to write a paragraph about an unforgettable day that I wished had gone better as a teenager. It took me much longer than the first one to think about but I ended up thinking about my 16th birthday, it was the worst day of my life. My kidney transplant had almost failed and the donor was a friend of the family's son Max that I've had a crush on for years. His health had run down badly and after a while, he got paralyzed due to the failure of the only kidney he had left... I wish that day never existed, it would have been a great day if he had not donated his kidney to me, I don't care if I'd been dead by now but that surgery should've never happened. That day would have been a perfect one if I had spent normally like any other day.

In the last chapter of the book, I was granted one last wish if I had to live one last day, I spent a long time thinking about it till my daily phone alarm started ringing, a few hours had passed without even bothering looking at the time. I checked my phone, it's 10 am already. I have completely lost track of time, I returned the book to its shelf and stepped out of the library, what an adventure that book had put me through! 

I spent about 3 days wandering around London and the nearby villages, it was an everlasting trip that made me get to know my adventurous, photographer, traveller side more than ever.

On my way back to Paris, I spent most of the time writing in my diary about my brief yet very interesting trip. I arrived at 8 pm and decided to have dinner at the train station before going home. 

"Elaine! Is that you?" I heard a familiar voice calling my name. 

I turned around and was pleasantly shocked by what I saw. "Max? Oh my God! You're walking and you look super healthy... I can't believe I finally got to see you like this" I gave him a tight hug.

"Oh, Elaine! What are you talking about you silly, we haven't seen each other since you were in middle school, I could barely recognize you, you look all grown and mature!"

"Wait-" His phone started ringing. "I have to get this one, keep in touch Elaine!" He left and I was still frozen in my place. What had just happened? The last time I saw Max was a month ago and he seemed very weak and been unable to walk since our surgery, how come he's totally fine now? Something must be off. 

I took the bus home feeling very knocked out from my trip and sleeping on cheap guest house beds, I couldn't wait to get to my comfy bed, I'm pretty sure mum had made some delicious dessert since she knew I'm coming home.

I tried opening the front door with my keys but it seemed impossible, mum had finally shown up after I tried unlocking the door a couple of times. "Oh God, did you change the door lock mum? I've been trying to unlock the door forever, I'm so tired it's unreal... I haven't been doing much... I think I'm si-" 

"Step away or I'm gonna call the police," Mum cut me off shouting, then called my father. 

"What? Mum, what are you talking about this is me? Is this a joke?" 

"What's going on honey? Who's this girl?" My father showed up.

"Dad? Can't you recognize me? Come on guys I've only been away for a few days how can you forget about your own daughter"

"She tried to break in" Mum replied.

"Can you hear me? I'm saying that I'm your own daughter how can you even forget about me, it's Elaine! I'm your daughter..." Tears started streaming down my cheek.

My father shook his head while mum seemed to get emotional. " I don't know what happening in your life kid but I hope you find your family, we never had kids." He then shut the door immediately. 

I quietly sat on the pavement not knowing what to do nor what to think. What had just happened, things have been feeling very strange since I got here, I tried processing the whole thing till I suddenly felt a sharp pain in my belly, I tried to stand up but I could barely walk if felt like my body was falling apart, I managed to stop a taxi before falling to the ground and asked him to take me to the emergency. 

I stayed in the waiting area for minutes, it felt like hours. I had a fever and the pain was only getting worse, my turn has finally arrived and I couldn't believe my ears when the doctor started speaking. "I'm going, to be honest with you, your kidneys have been in a very bad state, you should've had a transplant a long time ago, it's a miracle that you're still alive and functioning properly, but I'm afraid you'll have to be hospitalised for the next few weeks and be put on the organ trans list." 

I couldn't tell him that I had the surgery years ago, there's no way all of this could be happening. Everything is bizarre and cluttered, it's like I'm living in a parallel universe with parents who don't even know their own daughter, Max being perfectly healthy and me having never had a kidney transplant? 

A nurse came in to give me some painkillers as I was trying to piece the whole thing together, I took the painkillers and quietly waited for the nurse to leave then sneaked out of the hospital. I took the longest walk trying to understand what on earth happened, I then remembered the book. I stopped in my tracks, what? Seriously? "Everything has consequences, always think a million before proceeding to another thing." Some lines from the book kept roaming in my head. 

I spent hours walking and thinking all alone on the cold empty streets, trying to come up with a way to end this confusion. How could a book turn my whole life upside down? I never even took it seriously. After a long thought, I finally settled upon going back to that library and find the book. I never finished it so I have no idea what other stuff could be happening or if all the people who've written it had experienced what I did.

I took the fastest train back to London and fell asleep on it from exhaustion and deep thinking. 

After I finally arrived, I went straight to the library looking for the book but it was nowhere to be found, I asked someone working out there but after looking for it on the computer, he said there's no such book in this library. I spent more time looking for it but it wasn't there as if it never even existed. I spent hours looking for the book without any success until the library staff asked me to leave since it closes on Mondays for cleaning. 

I walked around wondering what to do with my life, I spent my last cents on a piece of bread I had in the morning and I have no more money to go back home, in this case, I don't even know if I still have a home, my whole body was itching and it kept on feeling worse as time went by, I felt a presence following me again and as I gathered my courage and turned around I figure out it was the same person who was following me when I first got here. Same hat, same jacket and walking the same way. "Who are you? I shouted. What do you want?" 

"You're not the first one" he replied.

"What?" I approached him. In this case, I've got nothing more to lose. "How bad is it?" He asked. "Your case." He added. I knew he was talking about the book, and he seemed to know something I didn't.

"My parents forgot about my existence and I'm about to die from Nephroptosis." 

"It's worse than I thought, you reckon you can survive this?" He asked.

"Give me the book, I know you have it," I ordered.

"Look kiddo, I'm just trying to help. Someone must have the book, they can actually help you but you have no right to force them to. They should choose to, but keep in mind it could be hard to convince them, the sooner you do, the better it is." 

The old man left without allowing me to ask any more question. I sat on the pavement thinking what he means by "It could be hard to convince them", he made it seem like I might know the person but I don't think I do. And in a fraction of a second. It all made sense, Max, it should be him, I sold my camera, the one I bought after working so hard for almost a year, it's still kind of new and it's been the most valuable thing I ever owned. But I thought it through and figured out that nothing could be more valuable than my parents and my health. I went back to Paris again and took the bus to Max's house. He opened the door with a strange look on his face, he knew what I came for, but he was not under any obligation to give me back the book nor his kidney. We went up to his room and talked about how he bought this miraculous book online, and he only realized it was me who wrote some of the answers after the second chapter, and it was too late since he had already wished to regain his health.  

I was genuinely happy to see Max living a normal life, especially after watching him go through hell and back because of me, at that point, I was okay with getting hospitalised and stay on the organ transplant list, the only thing that I had wished for was to spend more time with my parents, to hug them and just be with them, nothing else mattered. 

Max agreed to let me have the last wish so I wished for my parents to remember me, I went straight home after that, as soon as she saw me, mum broke down crying, begging me to forgive her for not remembering me the other day, I hugged her tightly, then I heard my father's voice calling my name, next thing I remember everything had turned dark until I opened my eyes to the sound of the IV and monitors beeping, I desperately tried to open my eyes wider to see something other than blurry mixed colours, I felt a hand holding mine and a voice calling my name softly, I didn't have to see much, I knew it was mum. "It's okay baby, I'm with you." 

"Mum", I muttered trying to reach out to her using my left hand but I was way too powerless to even lift my hand properly.

I closed my eyes again, I heard someone coming in, it must be the doctor. My parents asked if I'm okay but I could barely hear things properly, I heard him talking about some list. I heard someone humming and all the voices were mixed until they were completely gone but the humming was getting clearer and clearer until I realized that it was my late grandma singing me a before bed lullaby, I'm just glad I'll be remembered as the person I am, Elaine Aubert.