One.
She's old, wrinkled, gray.
Her skin is like paper folding and re-folding over itself in intricate patterns and layers. Her hair is like ash, powdered and fluffed even after all these years. Her smile is the same, though. Blinding teeth, slight pink of a tongue, crinkled eyes. It's the same smile she spent hours in middle school perfecting.
Her family smiles back.
It's nice.
Two.
The pounding of the bass makes her skull throb. She has to squint her eyes to keep the flashing lights from making it even worse, which causes her to accidentally run into a few people. Overall, she's annoyed, tired, in pain, and she wants nothing more than to go home and curl up with her cat while they watch a few episodes of Friends. Well, ibuprofen first and then Friends.
Her friends complain, of course. They beg her to stay, have fun, enjoy a girls night out, but she manages to shrug them all off with little effort. They're having too much fun to worry about one of their friends leaving and missing out. Rachel doesn't really mind. The coat checker hits on her and tries to give her his number on the way out by holding her coat hostage until she takes the slip of paper with his number scribbled on it. She finally takes it in a fit of frustration, despite the fact that she's told him multiple times that she already has a boyfriend.
She so wrapped up in her frustration and self-pity that she doesn't notice the car until it's too late.
Three.
She's being naughty. She knows she'll definitely be sent to a time out if her daddies catch her, so she makes sure to create as little noise as possible. She doesn't think they know that she's up when no lights come on after she accidentally closes the porch door a little too loudly.
She holds her breath and counts to ten, her fingers frozen on the handle and her wide-eyed reflection staring back. The only sound present is of the quiet lapping of the brand new pool they just finished building and a cricket chirping. (The chirping sound is created by running the top of one wing along the bottom of the other wing, Rachel remembers. Mrs. Riley read a book on crickets to the class a few days ago. It was cool to learn, but she hated the pictures.)
No one comes. She releases a breath and readjusts one of her swimsuit straps. It's pink, with stars, and she thinks it's probably her most favorite thing in the whole wide world.
The sides are slick, and she wobbles a little when she dips her big toe in the pool. The water is cold, matching the chill in the air, and it's too dark for Rachel to see properly but that doesn't stop her.
She turns on her heel, intending to dump her towel and flip-flops on one of the beach chairs her daddy left out from earlier today, and she falls.
Four.
She eyes the bottle of pills as she brushes her teeth.
They're meant for the pain, but she has enough were a handful would send her to sleep. That's the only thing she does now anyways; sleep. It's certainly better than being awake. Being awake means getting sick and feeling weak and itchy wigs and blue lips.
She eyes the bottle of pills as she brushes her teeth and considers giving up right then and their. But then she thinks of her dads. She thinks of the way they clasp her hands so tight when the doctor is talking, and she thinks of the way her papa cried when she screamed at them. She thinks of her daddy, so strong and proud but about to crumble at the slightest mention of her death. She thinks of her dads, spits, and decides to leave the bottle alone.
So, she rolls her eyes, shakes her head, and goes on living her life to the best of her ability.
The sickness gets her anyways.
Five.
She coughs and something hot and wet dribbles down her cheek. She thinks it's blood from the way he reacts.
Her chest is on fire and she tries to claw at it but her arms are limp at her sides. She tries to curl her fingers then, but they don't respond. She tries not to panic.
It doesn't work.
Her chest is constricting, tightening around her lungs, and she can't breathe, she can't think, she can't -
"Rachel - "
She hears him, more scared, more panicked than her. It calms her. Her eyes trace over his face, focusing on him rather than the screaming in her head, and she doesn't notice that she's not breathing anymore.
She blinks. Once. Twice. His hand is against her face, smearing blood on her cheek, but she can't feel it. She doesn't think she can feel anything anymore. His mouth is moving slowly, words she can't quite hear curling over his lips. His brown eyes, his beautiful brown eyes that she's spent her life studying, are wide and frantic. She wishes they weren't. She wishes they -
Title from the poem, "In Death, My Final Part" by Mark R Slaughter.