Summer Mist

The news had broadcasted the heroic act for days. People would talk about it when they met up with their friends. Flowers were put down where the act had happened. The police had attended the funeral. The grave was never left alone. Tears would fall, from happiness and from sadness. It was a great tragedy to lose someone like him, but he had saved two people.

So what about the two people he had saved?

The woman, Emily was your average looking woman. Average height, average brown hair, nothing special about the eyes they were just plain brown, the colour of your normal morning coffee. She was nothing amazing. The other person that got saved was inside Emily. She was pregnant.

The flowers came flowing and the people wrote her letters saying how lucky she was, how she was blessed to live and how her child would be the luckiest alive.

So imagine the look of horror on the people’s faces when she muttered – “I didn’t want to be saved. I never asked him to.”

Her mother would hold her hand tightly and shake her head. “Don’t say such stupid things Emily.”

Emily would stare her mother right in the eyes and whisper “I killed a man and I didn’t even know it.” Emily would weep. She had killed a good man with a good life that had good people in it and for what? So that she could live? And to live for what exactly, an unwanted unborn.

Emily had dreams of growing up and marrying the perfect man and have children to live the perfect life with the house and all that jazz. She wanted all of that. And there was nothing wrong with wanting that. But that didn’t happen. Instead, from the age of 13 onwards, things turned for the worst in Emily’s life.

First the parents split and the dad didn’t want anything to do with her, then the new boyfriends came and thought different things about her, then the bullying at school started, the grades began to fall the ditching was normal routine, the police knew her by name. Then when she began to understand she needed to change her life and she was the one in control of it, a man came her way and got her pregnant.

I won’t go into details on how it happened, but Emily didn’t want the child, and neither did the father. Emily didn’t even know his first name to even try and find the father. Nothing made sense to Emily anymore. This isn’t what was meant to happen.

Emily had almost forgotten how to breathe. She sometimes thought she was breathing differently from everyone else, seeing things differently. Optimism was her long lost friend and hope was her closest enemy. Luck was never meant to be in the equation.

And she wasn’t meant to be saved. That’s not how the world was meant to spin.

“Emily, this is your new start.” Her mother would hold her as the phone would ring with people wanting to speak to Emily to praise how lucky she was, with cards littering their windowsill and fire place saying how lucky she was.

Lucky Emily – it sounded bitter.

Emily looked around the room full of luck and she didn’t know what made her feel sicker, the baby or the room.

“No” Emily slowly stood up and placed a hand on her back as she did so, silently cursing the baby. “This is it mom.” And she walked out of the room leaving her mother to sit in defeat.

Emily gave birth to a baby girl. She felt nothing towards her. Emily wondered if she was human at all. She would look down at the pink blob and nothing came to her. Her cheeks didn’t flush, her heart rate didn’t increase or decrease, her skin didn’t buzz. She felt nothing.

If anything she felt dirty.

Emily was last seen alive on the door step of a home that belonged to the man that saved her. His wife answered her eyes almost as dead as Emily’s. Emily held out the baby girl. “I’m sorry.” She handed the baby to her and her eyes instantly came alive. Emily explained, she didn’t want the child and wanted to give life back to the woman who had lost one.

That was the last time Emily was seen alive.

Emily was found curled up by the grave of her rescuer. The rain and the wind had wrapped their arms around her and suffocated her. She didn’t stand a chance, but then again she didn’t put up a fight. Many turned up to the funeral to say goodbye. Her father turned up, the father of her baby turned up but nobody knew. The hero’s wife turned up with Emily’s baby.

She named her Summer. She was saved in the summer time so it seemed appropriate.

In the end of it all Emily was saved by the hands of the hero. She went t the grave to shout and cry at him for saving her. His name was Paul and Emily couldn’t help but notice that it also belonged to her father.

Emily left the world quietly, like a summer mist.

This time people had nothing to say, and soon she was forgotten.