Mini Pack: The Ten Things I'll Never Do" (Short Story) by Julie Todd

The 10 Things I’ll Never Do

I don’t usually go to bars on Mondays, there’s something about the desperation of

corporate slugs emerging from their cubicles at 5 on the dot that really kills my buzz. But today was different. Today my number went down. Catholics call it an act of God; a penance that all humans are given at birth to atone for centuries of sins. Philosophers call it fate, a gift of knowledge and the tether between human actions and destiny. I prefer to call it bullshit. Around 30 years ago, babies were born into this world with the number 10 on their shoulders. The marks were dark and murky like a fading tattoo. Every so often, that number would count down. After the first vanishing, anthropologists decided that this number represented tasks for every human to complete. No one knows, when a person completes their ten, they evaporate, crumbling like ash and flowing away into thin air, like a dandelion blown away.

I’ve seen my fair share of vanishings. An older woman giving a child a piece of gum left her vanishing feet first into the air and the last of her body dissipating. Her hand outstretched with the gum crashing onto the sidewalk. A grocery clerk smiling at a man outside the window vaporizing into the produce aisle. My mother; fading away in our kitchen leaving me nothing but her smile. There is nothing good about the ten.

I huff, shoving my hands deep into my jacket pocket in search of a cigarette but come up

with a handful of lint and a crumpled straw wrapper. I come up to Bernie’s Bar, nestled between a corner store and a homestyle diner. Bernie’s was popular with college kids in the area, they’re notorious for not turning away fake IDs and having cheap shots after 1 am. Though I’m only 22 I find myself infuriated by my peers, I attended the local community college for a whopping 2 months before I exceeded my threshold for handling hormone induced stupidity and went back to

my apprenticeship at the tattoo parlor down the road. Nothing compares to the freedom of art and I will never be content with settling into the routine we have built around the ten. You either die, or your fate kills you. Though I’ve already completed my fair share of the count, I feel my path strays just far enough from the monotony of everyday life that I can die normally. With all of my limbs still intact. I push through the heavy metal door down the dangerously steep stairs to the bar area where I am greeted with the stench of weed and the humidity of sweat. My friend Andrew is behind the bar and does a double take when he sees my face.

“Michael, what the hell, man!” he slaps his hand down on the bar in front of a vacant

space between some girls and a group of gangly men. I insert myself between them, edging away from the girls so I wouldn’t brush up against the bare back of one particularly pretty brunette.

“You never come on weekdays. What’s up?”

“You won’t fucking believe this!” I shrug off my jacket on my left side and reveal my

shoulder to Andrew. Between the dragon tattoo circling down my bicep and a collection of vines was my count. I’d tried covering it with tattoos, but it burns through, like a stain. “Look at my count, man.”

Andrew’s brow furrows as he looks at it. “Five? Dude what did you do?”

I motion for a drink. “I gave this lady a tattoo today, to cover this huge scar on her back,

and it went down. Can you believe this?”

Andrew pours me a glass and I down it in one gulp, waving for another. Years ago,

Andrew and I had been “guests” in the same foster home, with the same terrible “parents.”

Andrew has always been far smaller than me, so he was an easy target for their birth children. He would come to me after school bruised and scraped and one day I just wailed on the kid so hard

that he never looked at Andrew again. Doing that for Andrew was my 8th task, one of the only ones I didn’t mind. “That’s ridiculous Mikey, I’m sorry. I wonder where she got the scar from though. Like what made it important?”

“Who cares.” I send Andrew a glare and drink the second glass. A wave of giggles to my

right prompts me to look at the girls only to notice that they’re looking at me. I make a point of keeping a blank unreadable face and look at the girl closest to me. She’s small and pale, her auburn hair cascaded around her face, she smells like something familiar. Sweet and grounding.

Her green eyes catch my attention. They were bright, beaming up at me. “Can I help you?”

She shoots a look back at her friends, whipping me with her hair in the process. “We were

wondering if you knew a good tattoo shop, for later maybe?”

Despite the slur of one too many drinks her voice was smooth and kind. I glance at

Andrew who is more fascinated by the girl's low-cut shirt than her interest in me. I cough and after glaring at me he moves his attention to the men on the other side of the girls. “Yeah,” I say absently, reaching into my jacket pocket for the card to my shop. I hand her the card and she’s a little closer now than she was before, her eyes peering up at me expectantly. “Here, that’s my shop.”

“Thank you,” she says politely and turns back to her friends before leaving for the

bathroom. Her friends turn to the boys and Andrew is nowhere to be found so I turn my attention to my glass of whisky. A squeal forces me to look at her friends who are pulling themselves away from the group of overly touchy guys, one had his arm firmly wrapped around the waist of the girl to his right and she is leaning as far away from his mouth as possible. Eventually she detaches his arm from around her and the girls flock to the other side of the bar. As I’m about to

head to the smoking lounge my eyes land on the brunette’s drink just as one boy with a backwards hat drops a small white pill into it. He whips back around clearly not noticing that I had seen his trick. I watch the pill dissolve a bit, and before long the girl returns.

Her eyes scan the sticky bar, landing on the fruity drink to my right and she pushes

against me to grasp at her glass. Time slows and my mind races. If I leave it, I know what will happen. But if I tell her, my count could go down. I could pretend it didn’t happen, or I could stop something bad. With a quick huff of annoyance, I edge my elbow against the drink and send its contents across my jacket and the counter. “What the fuck?” she yells.

“Sorry,” I say, but I haven’t met her eyes yet. “Let me buy you another one to make up

for it.”

Now she is nudging past me, her hair sticking to my soaked jacket. “If this is your way of

getting a girl's attention it’s a shit way to do it. That drink was $7.”

A tinge of rage shoots through me at her tone. I decided to turn this situation calmly,

without hurting anyone. “Next one's on me then,” She looks up at me, her green eyes glowing against the neon lights of the bar. I try not to let my scowl waver.

“I’ll take that drink then,” She says tenderly, like she’s whispering to me and my

shoulders relax. She contorts her body to extend her hand. “I’m Annie.”

I take off my soaked jacket, suddenly irritated by the heavy sensation of wet leather on

my skin and I hold my hand back out to her, “I’m Mike, there’s a booth over there if you want to get away from the bar.” When her hand touches mine, her fingers aren’t warm and welcoming like I expected. They were cold and bony, and it made me want to hold her hand for longer just

to warm them up. As she sways to the booth, I flag down Andrew, “Andrew! Can I get another Cosmo and a- what the fuck?”

I catch a glimpse of my shoulder in my reflection in the bar mirror. My count was no

longer at a cool and deep black 5, it was now at an eerie 4, gleaming like it was mocking me. I look over at the girl in the corner with the big green eyes and the bouncing brown curls. A terrible shot rips through me, if I had just let it happen, I would still be at 5. I shake it off quickly, feeling the nerves of the count setting in, but I’m antsy.

“Here’s your drink, jackass.” Andrew’s voice feels annoying, and I move for the booth

swiftly, abandoning the drinks. When I approach Annie my nerves cool, this is fine. Nothing’s wrong, just act like you always do. She isn’t the reason my count went down, it’s because of that guy. Right? One night is fine, what else could go wrong?

“You wanna get out of here?” I ask. She nods and makes a mad grab for my hand. ⬦⬦⬦ I feel sluggish at work the next day, my shoulders hang low while I clean my station and my fifth cup of coffee teeters dangerously close to my tablet. I steady it with my hand and focus on trying to read my schedule for the day. “Rough night?”

My eyes meet my boss’s, or rather they meet his sunglasses. “Not as rough as yours, I’m assuming.” Charlie lets out a weak chuckle and he lifts an energy drink to his lips before reaching a hand over and flicking my neck.

“I meant this, jackass.” I stand up to look at my reflection in the mirror we use for customers. A small hickey the size of a quarter beams proudly on my neck. “So, what’s her name?”

I roll my eyes and look for my jacket in the pile of stuff stacked in the corner of my station. “I don’t know, I won’t see her again.”

“Mikey, Mikey, Mikey,” Charlie tisked and he ruffled my black hair with his spare hand.

“You should know better than to hide a girl from me.”

After I pat down my hair in the mirror and return to my seat, “There’s nothing to tell, Charlie. I’m not gonna see her again. She knocked down my count.”

“Ah, your count…” Charlie says dismissively. “The count is an inevitability, kid. You can’t outrun it forever.” Charlie, who’s count was firmly stuck at 3 and had been since I met him, never shied away from his count. He’s chasing his girlfriend who vanished 5 years ago, and now looks for opportunities to fulfill whatever his count entails and meet her again in the afterlife.

When I don’t respond Charlie pulls up the edge of my shirt to look at my count. “Four, huh? You’ll catch up to me in no time.”

I slap his hand away, “Yeah right. I’m not looking to vanish just yet, old man.”

“Your count has been easy kid.” Charlie huffs, “All your tasks have been helping people.

Mine aren’t like that.”

I shoot him a glare, “Maybe you’re just helping the wrong people. If you helped every chick about to get roofied maybe you wouldn’t be at three.”

“And if you were as big of a terror as you pretended to be, you wouldn’t be at four.”

Mikey tutted and pinched my cheek for good measure.

I decide not to dive further into the conversation and turn my attention to my tablet.

Charlie had ventured off to bother another one of his workers and I began concept sketches. A

ringing noise signals a customer entering and I wince as I lose my concentration. “Mikey! Are you taking walk-ins?”

Charlie’s voice summons me to the standing position, and I glance up at the front desk.

Annie stands proudly at the register, dressed more casually than last night and she obviously had time to shower. She shoots me a small wave and a smile and a twinge of guilt rips through me.

Maybe I should have left a note or something this morning. I think about lying, saying I had an appointment, but my mouth betrays me, and I let out a meek: “Sure.”

She offers Charlie a polite smile before walking back to my station. I absently drag the chair from the other side of the shop next to my desk. She mutters a thank you and sits down, crossing her leg at the ankles waiting for me to sit. “You look terrible.” She giggles.

I lean back into my desk chair. “I wish I could say the same about you.” She seems to sigh in relief, and I sit up straighter, suddenly more conscious of how I look in my tiny part of the parlor. “Why are you here?”

She rustles in her purse and pulls out the card I gave her last night with my name and the shop’s logo on it. “To get a tattoo of course, Michael.”

I meet her eyes when she says my name, enjoying the way her mouth forms the syllables.

I turn to my tablet and start a new blank page. “What did you have in mind, Annie?”

She pulls out a small piece of paper from her purse and hands it to me, her cold fingers grazing mine for a second too long before she returns them to her lap. I unfold the paper carefully to reveal her name, handwritten in child-like letters. I look up at her and before I can ask, she speaks. “It’s my mother’s handwriting. She has dementia, and this was the last time she wrote my name down. I want it here.”

Annie pulls up the sleeve of her sweatshirt and taps her wrist tentatively. With a nod I take a picture of the piece of paper and trace the letters onto my pad. We are silent during the time while I trace and print the tattoo. I cut out the copy and carefully rolled up her sleeve to hold the cut out to her wrist, running my thumb tentatively over her skin. “Is the sizing okay? We can go smaller.”

“It’s perfect.” She says curtly, and I eye her coolly.

I step back and roll out the disposable paper on top of my chair. “I’m gonna have you up here,” I tap the chair with my finger and watch her do an uncomfortable half jump onto the chair.

She shifts and the paper under her crinkles. “Are you nervous?”

She sighs. “Yeah, I’ve never gotten a tattoo. But I’m glad it’s something about my mom.”

I smirk at her as I drag my chair over to where she is seated, “You’ll have to get something for your dad too, don’t want him feeling left out.”

“No,” She says curtly. She gives me a cool expression. “I don’t owe him anything.”

I bite the inside of my cheek. She looks out the window of the shop and for a moment I think she’ll leave but before she does, I think I should say something. “My dad isn’t in the picture either,” she looks at me now, her eyes a little more reassured. “Never has been, something about the count I guess.”

Deadbeat parents are more common with the presence of the count. I’m not the only person in the world trying to avoid vanishing. She seems content in that answer and shifts again, settling her back against the headrest. “I’m ready.”

I let out a chuckle at her determination. “Yeah, Annie?” She nods and I push the trigger on the gun a few times to see her squirm. “Okay, let me know if you need a break.”

By the time Annie’s tattoo was done I wished she had gotten something bigger. We talked about her mother and how they drifted apart when Annie moved for school, we talked about her masters in psychology and how she wants to work with children who have lost their parents. We talked about how she moved from Kansas to San Diego to leave the small town she’d grown up in. I felt a sense of peace listening to her, her voice was grounding and calm.

When I ring her up at the front I watch earnestly as she flips through the cash in her wallet for my tip. On a whim I shoot my hand out to stop her hands and she meets my eyes.

“Instead of a tip…” my voice hitches on the words in my mouth and I just stand there, mouth open, ready to catch flies.

“I’ll give you my number.” She finishes confidently. She grabs a pen from our cup of pens on the front desk and pulls up my sleeve to write her number on my arm between a tattoo of a dancing skeleton and a movie quote. “I’m free Saturday.” She turns and waltzes out the door.

I walk back to my desk.

“Michael,” I turn when I hear Charlie’s voice. “So that’s the hickey, huh?”

I feel my face get hot and I rip off the paper from the chair. “That obvious?” I ask, rubbing the back of my neck.

“Yeah,” Charlie says, spinning my body so my left side was facing the mirror. He pulls up my sleeve, “that obvious.”

I peek down at my count and the smooth curve of the 4 has now morphed into a sharp 3.

The number was like a slap in the face. Fuck. ⬦⬦⬦

I’ve learned a lot of things about Annie during the past 4 months. She likes the color blue, big blankets, loud rock music, rom coms, and Italian food. She hates crowded places like movie theatres and clubs, she hates poetry because it feels too whiny, and she hates the ten just as much as I do. One night after we had gone out drinking, we returned to her run-down college apartment, sprinting past her roommates to the quiet of her room and she laid my head in her lap and talked about her life. My fingers trace the tattoo I’d given her, and she asks me about my mom.

“She’s gone, she vanished when I was 8,” She stopped running her hands through my hair and muttered a quiet apology. “It’s fine, I’m older now.”

She rubbed her hand over my cheek and her cold fingers felt soothing against my alcohol flushed cheeks. “Do you miss her?”

“Of course,” I answer quickly. When the silence between us is too long I feel the urge to keep talking. “She taught me how to draw and read. She was too kind and deserved to live longer.”

“Is that why you hate the ten?”

I sat up then, suddenly more irritated. “Nothing good can come from the ten, Annie.” She seems a little taken aback but I’m unnerved. “The ten has only taken the lives of good people. If this is some twisted fate, what the hell did they do to deserve it? It takes parents from their children-” My voice cuts off then and Annie is on top of me, hugging and caressing me and holding me tight to her chest. “It’s okay, Mikey.”

“You’re right,” I say coolly, coming down from my emotional high. “It’s the ten’s fault. If not for the stupid fucking count I would still have my mom and I wouldn’t have had to be on my own for so long. I wouldn’t have had to feel so alone.”

Annie rubs my back a few times before pulling me away from her chest, grasping my cheeks and forcing me to look her in the eyes. “Mikey, you aren’t alone. You have Andrew and Charlie and…” her voice breaks and she bites her lip. “You’ve got me now.”

A pang of guilt whacks me. My selfishness and my guarded tendencies forbade me from seeing her as anything more than a hookup. Four months later and my heart still beats fast when I see her, but my gut feels evasive. The kind of evasiveness that won’t put a label on it whenever she asks or calls her my “friend” when introducing her at the bar. I pull her onto my lap and bury my face into the nape of her neck, suffocating against her mane of hair.

“Be my girlfriend, Annie.” She stiffens in my grasp and tightens her grip around my broad shoulders, like we are hanging onto each other.

She brings her lips to my ear and mutters, “Anything for you, Mikey.” Then we kiss and make a mess of discarded clothes in her poorly lit room. While I’m hovering over her, my eyes catch a glimpse of my body in the mirror and they absently search for my count on my shoulder.

My count is now a curvy angry 2, waving under the movement of my muscles and I feel Annie’s cold hands grab at my face and she turns my chin to look at her. “I’m right here, Mikey. Don’t think about anything else.”

When I’m with Annie, my count always lingers in the back of my mind. The knowledge that I’m edging closer and closer to vanishing feels like a weight on my shoulders. But right now, with her hands clasped firmly on my shoulders and her lips planting kisses anywhere they can

find bare skin I think about Charlie and his girlfriend. I know Annie is mine, and I would follow her until she leaves me, or I’ll die trying to keep her. ⬦⬦⬦ The cool breeze of Autumn beats my face while me and Charlie are taking a smoke break outside. He is telling me how he increased his level on the new Call of Duty game and how he’s been playing with this kid online who claims to be a “god”, but Charlie always ends up helping him out. I’m trying to listen, but I’m thinking about Annie’s 23rd birthday coming up. It’s only a month away but now that we have been dating for almost a year it feels like I need to do something overwhelmingly special.

Feeling the weight of my first serious relationship has led to many internal battles.

Should I feel angry when she doesn’t text me back on a night out with friends? Do I get her jewelry for her birthday or do I take her on a trip? “Michael,” my eyes flick to Charlie. I feel a tinge of pain in my finger, and I look to see I had been standing so long that the cigarette had burned all the way to the butt. I flick the cigarette away bitterly and light another one. “You’re not even listening.”

“Sorry,” I say, but I don’t mean it.

“She’s got you down like a dog, boy.” I blow smoke at his face and he coughs, waving it away from him with a stupid grin on his face. He waves his finger teasingly. “Look at you!”

I’m about to say something when my phone begins buzzing in my back pocket. Annie usually doesn’t call during the day because she has classes, but her picture appears obstinately on my screen. “Hello?”

I drop my second cigarette when I hear Annie croak out that she’s at the hospital. My movements are quick and without explanation to Charlie, I’m moving on autopilot. It feels so surreal and without an explanation to why Annie is in the hospital, my mind wanders to worst case. Did she get in a car accident? Was she mugged? Could I have stopped something bad from happening? Everything sinks to reality when I enter the ICU. My mind is cool, searching for the room number Annie had uttered pitifully over the phone. Annie’s attached to all types of wires and tubes. “Hey, Mikey.” she croaks.

I rush to her side and brush her hair out of her face, it looks duller under the ugly fluorescents of the hospital lights. She lets out a weak chuckle and leans into my hand. “What happened?” I ask carefully, more gently than I usually speak.

“Cystic Fibrosis.” She spits out bitterly, I hang on to the way she pronounces the syllables with disdain. “It’s chronic, you know. Can’t be cured.”

“What the fuck, Annie?” I say this angrily because she doesn’t look surprised, or angry.

She knew she was sick, for god knows how long.

She sighs and kisses the palm of my hand that I quickly whip away. “I’m sorry, Mikey.”

The way she says my name feels pathetic now, like a mother telling her kids something terrible happened. Like the time my mother told me my father left. Right before she vanished. “I honestly didn’t think I would have an incident this fast. The medicine I’m on has been keeping me pretty stable but…”

“But?” I spit out. I don’t even know why I’m angry. She can’t help that she’s sick, or that it’s incurable or anything like that but I’m filled with anxiety and my nerves are high. I’m not just thinking about Annie now, I’m thinking about my mom too.

“It’s terminal, y’know?” She’s crying now. All thoughts of rage and fear evaporated with Annie’s tears. I lunge down to pull her into my arms. “I’m sorry I didn’t tell you.”

Between her gasps for breath, she clings onto me harder. “It’s okay, Annie.” After a long time she seems to stop crying. “I’ll always be here for you, baby.” I say into her hair, her heaving shoulders slow and she’s the first to pull away.

“But check this out,” she says with her puffy red face. She points to the mirror on our left and pulls up the sleeve of her gown to reveal her count that had gone down from 6 to 5.

Something sinks in me when I see this, and I feel the weight of our fading time together in my stomach. “I’ll catch up to you in no time.”

A short laugh escapes me, and I trace the number on her shoulder. Thinking about our numbers fading together grounded me in the reminder of our deaths. Though no one knows what happens after the vanishings, I would like to believe we go somewhere like heaven. An afterlife maybe. The cynic in me thinks that’s stupid, preposterous even. But for the sake of my mother, I’d like to think that their good deeds result in something after. Something more giving. Maybe Charlie could see his girlfriend again, maybe Annie and I could... I stop my thoughts, grounding myself in the reality of my count as well as Annie’s. “Yeah, good luck.” I say coolly.

“Mikey,” She says. Her voice has changed from exasperated to serious, “I want to finish my count.”

I go cold, and she looks up at me with pleading green eyes. “Why?” “I don’t want this disease to take me,” she says firmly. “I’ve always known that. And now it’s closer than ever. I just-”

I stop her then with a quick kiss and hold her head in my hands. “Okay,” I say, and we rest our foreheads together. “We can do that.” She kisses me tenderly and we hug in silence for a long time until she falls asleep. When she does, I quietly go to the restroom. I splash some cool water on my face, her count is a lot further away than mine. But she is a lot closer to death than me. A sense of loyalty fills me. I’ll follow her anywhere, do anything I can to make sure she dies how she wants. I pause and a sense of curiosity fills me. I tentatively lift the sleeve of my shirt to look at my count, just to check. My stupid black number is down to one. ⬦⬦⬦ We go to Kansas for Annie’s birthday. She thinks her mother has something to do with her count and I agreed, eagerly taking some much-needed time off work Annie. Anything to spend time with her right now. We B line straight for her mother’s care facility when we land and quickly find her in the back by the garden staring at the flowers.

“Mom,” Annie’s voice urges. When the older woman doesn't turn Annie puts her hand on her shoulder.

“Oh dear,” the woman says. The shock in her voice fades when she sees her. She and Annie have the same bright green eyes, and I can see the wheels turning but nothing is connecting.

Annie sighs and pulls a metal chair from the table next to her. “Hello Brenda,” she says calmly, “I’m your daughter, Annie. I came to visit you. Can we talk?”

Brenda tries hard to think for a bit before settling on the idea. “Well yes, I suppose.”

I feel awkward standing behind Annie, so I venture back inside and sit next to an old man playing chess. My eyes stay planted on Annie’s frail figure and she sits there for hours talking to

her mother until the sun sets behind the rose garden on the far end of the facility grounds. When she’s done her face is red from crying and she sets a steady hand on my shoulder. “I’m ready.”

I grab onto her hand and we stand there for a second in silence before I stand, and I look at the old man who had been playing chess. In all the hours I had been sitting there he hadn’t moved a single piece. Part of me feels guilty for not playing with him. But most of me feels guilty for not noticing, I was too focused on watching how Annie’s face contorted with pain and earnest scrambling to get her mother to remember. To remember anything. ⬦⬦⬦ A week later we are at the airport, waiting in line for coffee that Annie claimed she needed. I’m getting impatient waiting and thinking about our flight taking off soon. When our coffees are finally done, I rush over to our boarding area. Annie is sleeping calmly. Her legs cross comfortably in her seat, and her shoulders lift daintily under my coat.

I sit next to her, careful to not wake her but I do anyway. She wakes with a start. “My coffee!” she says drearily but with a hint of glee in her eyes. “Thank you, baby.”

“Anytime,” I say, and I kiss her cheek. “Are you glad you came home?”

“Yeah,” she takes a sip of her mocha and settles into my shoulder. “I’m glad my count went down.” I let out a chuckle and begin to drink my own coffee, relishing the bitter taste.

Annie starts tracing circles on my thigh, “Thank you for coming,” she says calmly, and I nod but don’t say anything. “I think I need to finish my degree next or do something with that for my count.”

“Okay,” I say, trying not to think about a day I will have to live without her. I think about going back to the shop and Annie’s classes for the next semester. I think about our one-year

anniversary and if I should get her anything flashy or expensive. If she would prefer another trip or a necklace. Simple things fill my mind, a future worth looking towards. One I don’t want to avoid that’s dictated by numbers or fear.

“I love you.”

I’m taken aback by this, in our entire relationship Annie has never said those words to me, and to say them in the middle of an airport felt inappropriate. The call for our flight blares over the intercom so I stand, and I pull her with me and into my arms. I bury my face into her hair, breathing heavily. “I love you too.”

I kiss her tenderly. Her lips feel like a promise, warm and calm against my hasty reply. A scream rips through my ears and I pull away, looking for the source of the noise and I notice everyone in the airport is staring at us. I look around frantically and see it. The familiar black chunks of someone’s body dissipating. I look down at my arms that were firmly wrapped around Annie and see that my entire right arm is gone, fading away into the air.

“Michael!” Annie is grasping at my shoulders, panicking and heaving and screaming for help. My right leg goes next, and I am forced to kneel on the cool tile. I grunt at the pain from landing on my remaining knee and look up at Annie.

“Annie, baby,” I pull her down with me and she’s wheezing and muttering no under her breath. “Baby, it’s okay.”

She shakes her head and grabs onto my cheeks but pulls away in horror as my face starts to dissolve in her grasp. “Michael-” “Annie, listen to me,” I say calmly, reaching out to grab her but my hand is no longer there. “I love you, Annie. You need to live and be a child psychologist and save lives and be the

person you were meant to be, okay?” She starts wheezing and I try to kiss her one more time but I’m not moving. She is shaking her head and screaming but I can’t hear her anymore so I muster out all I can think of and say the words I love you. I watch her fade away in ashes, but I know it’s me that’s fading, and I don’t regret a damn thing.