An Unfortunate Ending

She remembered that she didn't mean to do it. Roselle was so happy that she and Lionel were finally on speaking terms again. Of course, Roselle didn't know about the--nevermind. But it was raining, and she and Lionel were on the way to Roselle's from the airport. There were road reparations, and the relentless pouring drowned out the view of the street ahead.

People said the truck driver was drunk. He was counterflowing, after all, and at full speed, at that. Anyway, what mattered was the impact. It was an elf truck, but the speed made up for the size. They could barely scrape the bodies from the ruined vehicle.

She remembered Lionel breathing heavily, looking helplessly at her as life seeped from his body. Maybe he said something along the lines of, "I don't want to die," or, "Sorry, Roselle," or maybe she just made it up. It really is difficiult to tell when you're on the verge of dying a terrible and embarrassing death.

As for her, she closed her eyes and there was nothing. All she could think of was how that day began.

---

"Don't forget your lunch!" Kara shouted downstairs as her children's footsteps neared her. Their schoolbus was almost there and they were still packing their school things. Without so much as a thank you, they grabbed their lunches and walked past.

Children, Kara thought, you only love them when they're too young to fight you and rebel against everything you say. Her mother must have thought that too, when Kara was younger.

"Kids, listen to your mother," she heard her husband say. Ralf was a good person, but he...he certainly let himself go over the years. She watched him enter the kitchen in his boxers, his balding head uncombed and his beer belly sticking out. They were only in their 40s but people would mistake Ralf for her father.

She cringed a little when Ralf approached her to give her a peck on the cheek, his morning breath making her gag.

As her little gremlins ran down to take their packed lunches and rushed outside to meet their bus without so much as a goodbye, Kara wondered what it was she did to deserve this.

When Ralf finally cleaned up and left as well, she picked up her phone to read her messages. One of them made her smile.

Hey, beautiful ;) it read. It was from Lionel. She looked around quickly before sending him her own reply.

K: What are you up to?

L: Excited to see you later.

For some reason, that brought her back to reality. Lionel gladly said Kara would pick him up from the airport, as Roselle needed to tend to her mother at the nursing home. Of course they couldn't take Roselle out of the equation.

She pursed her lips and decided not to reply. She locked her phone and proceeded to vacuum the house. It was an awfully quiet house. It was a large house, something that had made her parents happy for her, even though she had been independently living years before that. Of course, nothing could quite make her parents happy, especially her mother.

As she wiped down the dishes and washed their other car, she remembered how, once, in high school, her mother heard that she had gotten a boyfriend (Lionel), after her sister outed her during a family dinner. There was a lot of screaming. She smiled at the memory. What she would give now for a little bit of that excitement in her life.

Kara didn't hate her life. She didn't love it either, though. It was just so...boring. Everyday she would wake up to a snoring Ralf. Then she would prepare her children's meals, and then Ralf's breakfast. She would iron his underewear and his clothes. After everyone has left the house, she would turn on the TV and mindlessly watch a homecooking show.

She should've known it was going to end up like this. Ralf was a last decision kind of thing. She married him because she was afraid that, at 36, she was never going to meet anyone. Her parents were old and wanted grandchildren, and she'd already lived out the best of her career as a high school teacher. He was already not good-looking back then, but he just became worse and worse, until she realized she had trapped herself in a life she never wanted. He was rich, she'll give him that. He was rich enough to sustain their entire family without Kara ever having to work a day again.

But Kara was good at being good. When she was younger, she'd always get straight A's, she never partied with friends, she stayed cooped in. Her older siblings were more rebellious, and she'd seen the consequences of rebellion that it scared her enough never to live her own life.

Kara's older sister became pregnant right after high school, and her older brother got jailed at 21. Kara knew that if she was going to make her parents proud, she would live a do-gooder's life, even if she suffered by it.

She only ever had one friend, Roselle, who had been her best friend since high school until they began to teach together. There was an awkward time when they liked the same person, Lionel Galvin, who became Kara's boyfriend for the longest time, until she broke things off with him. Lionel was handsome and fun, but he was also dangerous. He was unexpected. Which was what Kara liked about him in the first place, but she knew he wouldn't be a long-term thing.

After years of silence between them, Kara heard that Roselle and Lionel had gotten married. She wasn't invited to the wedding.

She reconnected with Lionel after he went abroad to work for his and Roselle's family. At that time, Roselle was pregnant, and they were struggling to make ends meet. Lionel sent Kara an unexpected apology, and she gladly took it.

---

Which brings them here, to the end of their lives. She could still hear the distant wailing of an ambulance, the light footsteps on gravel, the incoherent voices of traffic enforcers and police officers and onlookers. For some morbid reason, she didn't mind going this way.

At the back of her head, in the most masochistic way, she was glad it was finally over, and maybe this was how she deserved to die. As the noises finally died away, replaced by a loud ringing in her ears which also eventually faded, she decided to accept her fate.

---

It was dark at first, and utterly numb. Was this what death felt like? Yet, she was surprised to find that her thoughts were still in tact, that she could still think. Maybe this was what Purgatory must be? Or Hell, maybe? After all those years of doing good, she still ends up with the short end of the stick. Still, it could be worse.

Kara could take on the maddening silence that had eventually crept into years of her marriage anyway.

But then at some point even the silence stopped, and light began to pour into her vision. It was very warm and very wet. Her entire body felt like it had been beaten up and trampled on. She tried shouting for help, but only a hoarse whisper escaped her lips.

She opened her eyes fully to look at the ceiling moving above her head. Or was it the ceiling moving? No, it was her. She felt the rough surface of a thinly covered stretcher rushing her body across a hospital hallway. She tried moving her hand but it hurt. She moved her head a little to see who was with her. Nurses. Doctors. Unfamiliar faces of an old man and woman. Her parents, maybe, but she couldn't recognize them fully.

She closed her eyes again.

When she opened her eyes, the pain had numbed down, and she could feel the sheer hospital gown against her skin. There was an oxygen mask attached to her face, and an IV drip attached to her hand, but that was about all she felt.

"She's awake!" she heard someone say. She realized she could already turn her head fully. It was an exhausted woman whose face had aged but who she still knew--Roselle?

"Oh my hija, I'm so glad! So glad you're still alive." The old woman crowed and wept by her bedside, but she couldn't quite fit the pieces together.

"Your parents...they...they didn't survive the crash. But I'm so glad you did. You're all I have left of my daughter," Roselle said, still weeping.

Kara felt like asking a few questions, but she couldn't really say anything. And then it hit her. Suddenly--as if struck by an indescribable lightning bolt, memories began to flood her brain. She finally remembered who she was, and why she was here, but her own memories were muddled with the past life she just saw.

"Kara, I'm so happy you're still here."