"Miss Hwang?" I couldn't stand when people called me that. I was Tiffany not Miss Hwang.

"Hmm?" This was the second time I was facing her this week. Never in my life, did I think that I'd be in the same place so many times.

"You're failing all your calsses..." She said.

"Not all..." I pointed out.

"There is no future in art." She stated.

"You would know." I said point blank. I didn't like people putting down the process of art in order to make me do better in school.

She didn't say much more to me. She just sent me home to an angry mother who had been called and notified about my failing of like in my third year of high school.

That night I sat in my room. For once, I actually thought about my future. No college was going to accept me with my grades.

I had exams this year, it's not that I wasn't smart, I just had other things to do. Like paint. I don't think that I wanted to do anything else with my life, I got better each time, and I could really realease myself.

But with painting came the price I guess. I got so preoccupied, I didn't even notice that my grades were slipping so horribly. I just kept painting too, I didn't even blink.

That night I painted. I made three paintings, they all had some special meaning. My sister was a painter, but she died from a disease before I even began high school.

She was four years my senior and beautiful. She's the one who taught me how to paint. She told me that if I ever felt that I couldn't say something, I should paint it.

So I did, and it became the only way for me to even vent. If I couldn't say it with a paintbrush, it wasn't meant to be said.

One morning she came to me from her apartment. She was a professional artist living in the city. She was a good artist, people were always asking if we were related, and if they could meet her or look into her art.

She stood in the doorway. I was starting high school that coming week, and I was so excited to show her how well I was doing.

"You'll be great!" She assured me, but something wasn't sitting right. Her skin was paler than usual, and her hands were frail looking and icy to the touch.

"What have you gotten yourself into?" I asked as I wrapped my own, very much alive, hands around hers.

"Nothing, I'm just a little under the weather." She said quietly.

"Come here." I led her over to my bed.

And we talked again, like we were young children, and we had nothing to fear but what we didn't know. But now that we knew more...we had more to be afraid of.

I could tell she wasn't well. But I didn't want to make her angry and want to leave.

I always considered her feelings for my own. I didn't care about anyone but her. My parents loved her more than anything. She was perfect at everything she did. She said she was going to do something and then she did it.

She was a dream come true all the time.

But today she was sinking away from me fast, so I opened my mouth.

"What's wrong?" I asked, "For real."

She looked at me, lips a thin line, and cracked a grin that was still beautiful to me.

"I'm sick." He voice was still so quiet.

"I know, but what can I do?" I asked, "Do you have a fever? Sore throat?"

I offered her as many medicines as I could name.

"Cardiomyopathy." Her breath was short, "There's no way I'll live throught it."

I had never heard her say that. She wasn't ever sure of anything if it was negative. She didn't think that it was the end unless everything was OK.

"Of course you will." I said blankly. I didn't look her in the eye.

Two weeks later she died. And I didn't look her in the eye between that one day and the day she died.

The funeral went slowly, and eventually just my parents and I were left there. Mom and Dad pat my back and went to the car. I didn't think that I'd be going home. I couldn't have been more right.

That night I looked around the house a bit. My parents had gone to bed. But I knew they weren't sleeping. I just wasn't trying.

I continued in high school. But I didn't see the point in anything that wasn't painting.