The Last Thing She Ever Did Novels & Stories

She held the last conversation with Marcus in the specific way she held things she was going to need to carry alone. She thought: I will carry this carefully. I will tell it to the record and to the memorial garden and to the east yard bench. I will not let it be lost. She thought: nothing is lost when you hold it correctly. She held it. She held on. She thought: yes. Nothing is lost when you hold it correctly. She held on. She kept going. She always would. She was the last and she was going to hold it carefully for as long as she was the last. She held on.

The last thing before she gave into the darkness was Cole’s blurry face, his eyes bright and golden, and his lips moving with the call of her name. She smiled at him, reached up her frail hand to touch his cheek one last time. As she whispered what she hoped was ‘I love you.’ She had tried her best. She had done all she could. She only hoped that someone else would be there to carry on the Tarrio legacy—someone not even her parents knew about. Because her time on earth was over, and there was nothing anyone could do about it. It had been a good twenty years, sad to see it end so soon.

She had written: "No matter how much time passes, you will always be the one I couldn’t have. I finally gave myself to you. From now on, I’m yours." My heart was pierced again. Elara and I were over. She no longer had to hide her underground affair with Drew.

I look at her. "He died this morning," she says. "Talia said it was quiet. He was sleeping and then he was not." She pauses. "She said the last thing he said, the night before, was the seven words." I look at her. "She kept going and so will they all," Selene says. "Yes," I say. She comes into the room. She sits in her chair. She does not pick up the continuation record. She does not pick up the notebook. She just sits.

“The pack is so worried about—” “I know,” I interrupt, too impatient to hear his worries. “I need to know who the very last person was to see her.” Beside him, Dahlia chimes in. “I saw her heading off to the resources depot once she was done with us. From what everyone can put together, that was her last round.”

"Conrad, eat. You'll warm up once you do." Conrad closed his eyes. A smile more painful than tears tugged at his lips. At last, he understood. There would never again be a woman named Seraphina who was willing to give her life to love a bastard named Conrad. The gears of fate had locked into place the moment that speakerphone call connected. What remained for him was a long, endless life. One without redemption.

But the messengers expressionlessly locked chains around her and said coldly, "He has already left the cycle of reincarnation. You will never see each other again for all eternity." Princess Jasmine broke down in despairing sobs. She struggled, trying to come find me, but the messengers dragged her away by force. On the path to the underworld, pale flowers swayed in the wind. Princess Jasmine seemed to think of something. She suddenly reached her hand into the air, trying to catch the breeze brushing past her ear. But the wind soon died down. In the end, nothing remained. Just like Princess Jasmine and me. Neither in this world nor the next would we ever meet again.

I smiled sincerely and turned away from the prison. After seeing Vivian for the last time, I would never need to see her again in this life. She would disappear from my world forever. And my world would finally see the warmth of spring.

But now, the last person tied to my life had walked away too. When I died... There probably wouldn't even be anyone to claim my body. My tears wouldn't stop. Fine. I'd mourn myself early. *** I was feeding a bunch of stray cats when an old coworker called. She burst into tears before she even said a word. "Yara, you absolute angel, please come back, okay?" "I'm not going back." I poured food into a little bowl. The cats ate like it was the best meal of their lives, and I smiled.

I thought of the twisted rules they had beaten into me, and the terror of the opposite sex that had been branded into my body. I thought of that holiday night, the fireworks filling the sky, and the moment I stepped off the rooftop, the relief and the lightness of it. I thought of Talia's guilt, the apology she had never been able to say out loud, and the note she had left behind. I thought of Mom and Dad's regret, the way they had wept, and the empty house they would live in for the rest of their lives. All of it was behind me now. All of it was over.