Page 5 of Speak

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I think I always knew I was going to die young. Like I had this… silent, invisible clock ticking down to my final moments plastered above my head. Maybe that’s why I was so reckless, crazy. Why I sought after adventure. Why nothing scared me… Except, there was always this…feelingI couldn’t shake that something was in the darkest parts of every corner, under every bed, closet, or room, like a ghost watching me. Waiting to take me. My own, personal reaper.

But it was always only during a lightning storm that I could see the outline of my reaper. No scythe. Just a tall, faceless shadow in a hood, staring at me in the dark…

If I had to guess, it started after my dad died. Used to beg Axel to sleep with me or I’d slip into bed with him. I’d shut my eyes tight and clutch to him until the sound of the storm and Axel’s scent soothed me to sleep.

That was the thing though. It was never the storm itself that scared me. Never the loud booming of thunder. Never the howling wind or the way the windows rattled. Never the sound of rain pounding against said windows. It was just that goddamn lightning.

Seems fitting, I suppose, that I’d die before my twentieth birthday during a freak lightning storm of the century… I just always thought I’d die while I was cliff-diving in Acapulco, parasailing in Hawaii, skydiving in Germany, or snowboarding down the snow-covered mountains in Colorado. Fuck it. I’d even take a boring death like simply dying in my sleep from a brain aneurysm or even an early onset heart attack.

Anything.

I’d take any other way other than this.

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When I was eight, dad took me to watch the airplanes take off and land at the airport. We had a picnic at a public park close by and even though I’d already been on a private jet with mama countless times, this was somehowwaycooler. It was just dad and me. He pushed me on the swing and I even tried pushing him but I could barely get him to move, he was so heavy. I wanted to fly and take off like the airplanes. I can hear his laughter… hear the…

Tchaikovsky?

“Papi?” but it comes out as, ‘pafi?’

But he doesn’t answer.

Just the swift changes of tempo. Fingers hitting keys.

Then… darkness.

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When I was eleven, I wanted to take Karate lessons with Axel… Sofia put me in ballet. I called dad crying… he told me there were children out there crying because their mothers couldn’t afford to put them in ballet and I should begratefuleven if it wasn’t what I wanted… I didn’t speak to him for a month afterwards. It still haunts me.

Chopin lullabies me or wakes me up, and I’m not sure if I’m even alive still. My reaper is absent. Just Chopin and me in this… where am I again? My ankles hurt. I need to pee so bad.

Maybe… maybe if I sleep a little longer I won’t have to pee so bad.

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When I was thirteen, I wanted to take self-defense classes. Mom bought me a cello instead, stating I would never need them. We had guards.

Cello, I was good at. I fell in love with the weight of it between my knees, loved how proud my mother looked at all of my performances. I loved how I could now make music instead of just listening to it.

“You are so talented, Raven.”

“Mm?”Mommy?

Silence.

So nice.

My eyes flutter.

Where’s Chopin?

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When I was fourteen, John caught me and Axel wrestling and he told me it was inappropriate, and that I was too violent.

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