The knife in her hands, she never truly wanted to be there. She pictured the blonde who had stolen her life.
She pictured the one she'd loved.
It hurt her, thinking of her true love, how she'd hoped he'd return for her, just to find he'd married her enemy.
The sweet, gentle woman looked around the room once more before she cut her wrists, stabbed her own heart and sliced her throat within seconds. She dropped to the floor.
A young blonde girl searched through the house. An old couple lived there now, by the name of Jasper and Vera Choudhary.
She was their great granddaughter, looking for her great grandfather's real true love. He'd told Rebecca that the woman who would have been her great grandma had died before he'd been able to tell her that he wasn't truly married.
Rebecca was determined to find the body of the woman who had left her great grandpa hurting and let him have his closure with her.
She ran her fingers across a wall near the front door. Rebecca felt a dent in the paper and whipped out her nail file. She pushed the point through the paper and dragged it down.
She got the door unstuck and walked in. She clicked on a light.
The room was dusty and full of spider webs. There were pictures on the walls. Pictures of a pretty woman, laughing and smiling. There was a neatly made bed, a dusty en-suite bathroom and a laptop. A skeleton with a knife in its ribs and a knife in its hand lay on the floor among a pile of dried up blood. Black locks still lay on the skull.
It was the woman her great grandpa had loved in her lifetime, who had been so insane with her sadness, she'd died to get away from it.
"Grandpa, come quick!" Rebecca shouted.
Her grandpa was still agile enough to get to his granddaughter.
"What is it, Beck?" He asked. Then he saw the room. "Oh, God, I remember this room. My Trudy used to love this room, she spent so much time in here, on her laptop, drawing and reading."
"Is that her, on the picture?" Rebecca asked, pointing.
"Yeah, that's her. She was beautiful, sweet and kind. Just like your gran. Trudy did have a little spark, Becks, one that made everyone around her glow."
Jasper was lost in the memories of the woman he'd loved so much. Rebecca held her grandpa's hand and saw pictures of a woman with curly black hair, medium brown skin and dark brown eyes.
She had a sparkling smile and a very maternally pretty face.
The woman wore a purple blue shirt and a blue cardigan over blue jeans with black shoes.
Rebecca looked at Jasper with wide brown eyes, like his which were amazing with her blonde hair.
"She was gorgeous, Grandpa. If you could resurrect her, take her back in time, would you marry her?" Rebecca asked.
"I don't know, Rebecca. I would, if Vera and I didn't have our children now. I wouldn't have you, then, pet." Jasper said.
"But you'd have her, you'd love her and she'd have had your babies." Rebecca said.
"Hmm, maybe, pet. But she wanted different, she always did. She was a restless soul, people used to tell her that she'd be fidgeting in her grave. She never enjoyed being in one place, tied to the same things. Now, she could be a free spirit, touring the world. She was a beautiful young thing, always would be, I expect."
Rebecca thought of the woman who could have been her great gran. The same woman who had loved Jasper so much, she'd taken her own life to make things easier for him and Vera.
The same woman who seemed so capable of love and tenderness.
She'd heard so many stories of how she'd been through a lot of things, always holding it together for the sake of others. Though when she'd died, she'd thought of others before herself.
Jasper looked at the skeleton at his feet. He crouched down and picked up some of the black curls. He braided them and put them in a little diamond locket.
"I intended to give her this if I ever married her. You take it Rebecca. I'm sure she would have loved to give it to you."
Rebecca held the diamond locket. Then she hugged her grandpa.
He said "She would love you to shreds, Becks. Hey, run along, I think your gran's got your supper." Jasper said.
"Grandpa, did Miss Trudy call that supper? Because you and Grandma never use that term." Rebecca asked.
"Yes, she did. Always. She was posh, Trudy was."
"I figured." Rebecca said, smiling. "She used to call our couch a sofa, our dinner our supper and she used to call her nightdress a nightgown. She was beautiful."
Jasper smiled. "I know."
When Rebecca left, Jasper smiled at the skeleton. "I'll join you someday, my beautiful, precious Trudy."