Her hand shook as she buckled the strap on her sedate black heel. It was the second time in over a year she had worn this dress and again the occasion was a somber one. She closed her eyes wiling herself to be strong, to put on the brave face. After all, she was used to this, right?
But how could anyone be ready for this? To be used to this? She just couldn't catch a break.
"It's my dream," she heard herself whisper from some long distant memory. "It was our dream," she said aloud in the present. "And now it's gone."
She looked in the mirror. The black dress only accentuated her pale features and frail state. She was rail thin, too thin. She was sure people would comment on her state. She could just imagine the whispers. See the sympathy and sadness in their eyes.
She wanted none of it - none of it. She picked up a bottle of perfume and was preparing to spray her wrists when she looked back in the mirror again. The pain, the anguish, the unfairness of this life overcame her and she hurled the bottle of perfume at the mirror and watched it shatter.
Shards scattered around her and when she looked back in the mirror she saw only half of her reflection. What a metaphor it made, for she was only half a person.
"People say we are like twins," she heard his voice say from her memory. Two halves of the same person, but now one half would have to live a half life.
A soft cry tore her gaze from the splintered reflection. She rushed to the other side of the room to peer down at the tiny infant in the crib beside their, no her, bed. She was crying softly and trying to stuff her tiny fist in her mouth.
Her heart began to melt. She leaned down and scooped up her three-month old daughter. She unhooked her dress and exposed her creamy white breast, allowing her child to latch on and began suckling. She stroked the baby's fine blonde hair as the infant nursed.
She was sure she would burst wide open from the grief if not for the child in her arms. They say God doesn't give someone more then they can handle, and though she didn't have much use for a God that would do this to her, she was grateful he had graced her with her daughter. Her daughter kept her from walking into the bathroom, extracting the razor blade from his razor, and slitting her wrists.
Even in her darkest moments, she had never thought of taking her life. Sure she had tempted fate, running all those red lights and speeding through Tree Hill in that black Comet like the devil himself was chasing her. But she always saw herself as too strong to take her own life.
She wasn't so sure about her strength these days. But then she would look into her baby daughter's piercing blue eyes and see all the strength she needed. She couldn't abandon her daughter, die and leave her, like both her mother's did. She couldn't allow her to grow up without her mother's love. She had already been cheated of her father's love
She never imagined she would be barely 24-years-old, a successful record label owner, mother of an infant daughter and the widow of Lucas Scott. No, Peyton Sawyer-Scott never imagined any of this, never imagined all her dreams would come true and then have them stolen from her all in less then a year.
"If this isn't your dream then why don't we change it?" A voice said.
Peyton looked around but saw no one. She expected to look up and see her best friend Brooke Davis in the doorway to her bedroom, but she wasn't. No one was there.
"Who is there, Peyton said scooting off the bed, her daughter tucked safely in her arms. "I said who is there."
"Only someone who can change this," a voice said. She looked again to the doorway to find a young woman standing there. She had soft blonde hair, and piercing blue eyes and Peyton was sure she was looking at herself.
"How can anyone change this?" Peyton questioned. The grief was overwhelming her again.
"If you want something bad enough, anything is possible," the young woman said. "I came to help you find answers, to change all of this."
"You can't change death," Peyton said weakly.
"Can't you," the young girl questioned. "Can't you?"