In his notes, Bedlack wrote, "I have explained that we may be in the last six months of her illness if it is allowed to take its natural course."
Sabrina had gotten a laptop for Christmas and almost immediately began building a virtual home on FarmVille. She used it to keep her Facebook friends up to speed on her progress.
"Sabrina Kay Parker has a doctors appointment tomorrow."
"In the hospital getting surgery again."
"At home bored."
She also used it to keep a running journal of her struggle with the illness. The undated narrative is raw, written in an almost stream-of-consciousness manner without regard for punctuation, grammar or capitalization.
"i have this dieases that is slowly killing me," she wrote, "and i have lost so much weight and i ahte taking my formula but my grandma and grandpa and matt force me to take it ... to keep my weight up and my health"
In April, Sabrina joined the ALS Association chapter in Raleigh. She, Matt and others participated in an ALS charity walk in nearby Wilmington. Sabrina's aunt Tonya launched a Facebook page and a cousin had T-shirts made up with the words "Sabrina's ALS Army."
In the meantime, Bedlack's team had approached the Make A Wish Foundation. Sabrina's first wish was to meet Lautner, who plays the "Twilight" werewolf, Jacob. The organization couldn't make that happen, but they were able to grant Sabrina's second choice — a trip to the newly opened Wizarding World of Harry Potter in Orlando, Fla.
School was out for summer, and Matt went with the family. The weakness in her neck prevented Sabrina from going on most of the rides, and Matt refused to do anything she couldn't.
Back home in early July, Matt accompanied Sabrina to an appointment with Bedlack. She weighed just 94 pounds.
When the doctor told her it was about time to make a decision about a ventilator, she turned to Matt and asked him what she should do.
"If it were up to me, I would want you to get it," he told her. "We'll be able to spend more time together."
Again, she put it off. But her journal reveals she was wrestling with whether to artificially prolong her life.
"i dont want to miss the prom," she wrote. "i want to be able to finsh high school and go to collage get a job get married and have kids of my own but i dnt like the way thing are going but its life and sometimes i think to myslef why dose it have to be me"
Sabrina began her freshman year at White Oak High School in late August. By the end of the first week, she had already logged her first sick day.
Barely three weeks into the school year, she decided to get the tracheostomy.
"kinda scared," she wrote on Facebook. "after the surgery have to stay 2 weeks in the hospital."
Surgeons placed the trach tube on Sept. 23. She agreed to try a ventilator, but quickly decided it was too painful and uncomfortable. On Oct. 6, she went home.
Homecoming was 10 days away, but there was no way Sabrina could attend. So Matt, her cousins and friends decided to bring homecoming to her.
Her uncle had a corrugated metal garage just down the road from the Parkers. The theme was "Haunted Homecoming," and the garage was decorated with cobwebs and skeletons.
A couple of hours before the official homecoming, Sabrina, clad in a black dress and sweater, was chauffeured to the dance in a vintage Ford Mustang, candy apple red. She and Matt were crowned king and queen.
The Scozzaris could tell that their 15-year-old son was madly in love with this terminally ill girl. And it worried them.
Matt began starting sentences with, "When Sabrina and I get married ..." Sabrina had taken to calling herself Sabrina Kay Scozzari, even sometimes signing her notes that way.
Finally, Audrey Scozzari sat her son down and explained that marriage, though not impossible, was impractical. Then she suggested an alternative.
"You know, they have something called a friendship ceremony," she told Matt. "That could be your way of letting her experience what a wedding would be like."
Matt loved the idea. But he wanted to get Sabrina's grandparents' consent before asking her.
Zelma Parker thought it was a sweet idea, but her husband had mixed feelings about a formal ceremony with a minister. It was bad enough for a boy to lose a girlfriend, he thought. Still, he went along. They scheduled the event for Nov. 20.
Matt's mother believes that people wait to die until they get permission to go from the one they love most. She'd seen that with her own parents, and she knew Sabrina was concerned about what her death would do to Matt.
Two weeks before the ceremony, Matt went to see Sabrina. Although it would make him sad, he said, it was OK for her to stop fighting. But there was something he wanted her to promise him.
"Would you wait for me up there, so we can walk in together?" he asked. "Don't be scared. Because your mom and my grandma and Uncle Chrissy will be there to meet you."
By the day of the ceremony, Sabrina was battling pneumonia yet again. A week earlier, she had fainted from lack of oxygen and fallen, opening a gash over her left eye that required six stitches.
She was down to 88 pounds.
But when she awoke around 3 p.m., she was more alert and upbeat than her grandparents had seen her in days.
"I'm feeling good," she told a visitor through her purple iPod. "Live my life, do what I can while I still have time."
A couple of hours before the ceremony was to start, Matt stopped by. Sabrina was sitting in the living room with her puppy, Fluffy, in her lap.
Matt bent down and kissed her.
"Excited?" he asked. She nodded.
Sabrina had asked her grandparents to buy her a wedding dress for the occasion, but they thought that inappropriate. She settled for a lovely ivory sheath embroidered with gold, with a matching gold shawl. One of Sabrina's nurses did her hair in a double row of French braids.
Matt met Sabrina at the car and escorted her inside the same garage where homecoming had been held. This time, the rafters were strung with Christmas lights, and the cold concrete floor was strewn with red, pink and white rose petals.
The couple sat holding hands as the minister led prayers. Twice, Sabrina had to be suctioned.
When the time came for the vows, the crowd came closer, forming a circle around the couple.
Matt turned to Sabrina and clasped her hands in his.
"Sabrina. I know that these few months or the year that we've been dating have been really hard," he said in a halting but firm voice. "We've had our ups and downs, but I KNOW that whatever happens, that I know I want to stay with you — and that I wish it would be longer."
He had changed, he said, "from somebody who didn't really care to somebody who had something to live for and care for," he said. "Being around you just makes me smile ... I'm hoping that you think the same way."
Sabrina smiled and nodded.
Matt had placed two small boxes on the petal-strewn table. He opened them to reveal matching silver bands — Claddagh rings, with a pair of hands clutching a heart topped by a crown.
"It was hard to find your size," he said, slipping the ring on the third finger of her right hand. "But I hope it's close enough."
Sabrina reached for the other ring, but her fingers were trembling and weak. Matt gently took hold of her hand and helped her guide the band over his knuckle.
All around them, there was applause, and tears.
After the ceremony, Matt walked Sabrina to an arbor decorated with garlands, fairy lights and silk brown-eyed Susans. As they posed for pictures, Audrey Scozzari turned to face them.
"Sabrina, you make him happy," she told the frail girl leaning into her son's embrace. "And I want to thank you for doing that for him."
Later, back home and unable to sleep, Sabrina logged onto Facebook.
"tonight was the most amazing night ever," she wrote. "i am glad that me and matt got t odo the freindship ceremonoy together i love what matt said and he is the love of my life matthew i love you i will be with you no matter what happens"
A couple of hours later, Matt posted his own message:
"Tonight you made me feel like the luckiest man alive!!" he wrote. "i hope tonight proved that I would walk to the ends of the earth and back for you. I may not be able to offer you diamonds and everything your heart desires but I hope that my love for you will be enough at the moment. No matter what the future has in store for you (us) know that I will be there with you forever and always!!"
On Thanksgiving Day, Sabrina's condition deteriorated rapidly. By Saturday, she could no longer raise her head.
Around midnight on Nov. 29, the Parkers called Matt: He'd better come. He stayed with Sabrina through the night, holding her hand and telling her he would be OK.
Sabrina died in her sleep the next morning. When the hearse came, Matt leaned down to kiss her on the forehead.
"Thank you for saving me," he whispered.
Among the songs Sabrina had chosen for her funeral was a country ballad by The Band Perry:
"If I die young bury me in satin
"Lay me down on a bed of roses
"Sink me in the river at dawn
"Send me away with the words of a love song."
She was buried in her Sweet 16 dress, a single red rose from Matt on the pillow beside her head.
Facebook notes of condolence and prayer have poured in to Matt — many from ALS sufferers and their families.
The boy who had to be cajoled to do his homework has been studying the disease. He set up a meeting with the president of the Raleigh ALS chapter.
He wants to establish a fund in honor of Sabrina, whose name he sometimes calls out in his sleep.