she’s learned to appreciate the sentiment. but it took some time to process. to understand that she had no control over what happened. dying just wasn’t in the cards for her that night. or was it ?
sometimes, she believes it should’ve been her ( sealed up in a biohazard bag, found at the bottom of the lake with dozens of other missing girls. ) other times, she thinks maybe she was meant to die in that trunk. eyes clouded and milky white. pallid skin, blue fingernails. cut marks visible on the cervical vertebrae.
she was told to be thankful that she couldn’t see herself during the weeks that followed, after the rescue. rushed into the intensive care unit with a collapsed lung, all twenty - four ribs cracked or broken. her wrist bone was shattered. collarbone had to be wired with a pin. and so she doesn’t like hearing SURVIVOR, because she isn’t sure every piece of her was pulled out of the trunk. there has to be something they left behind.
a piece of her that feels like it’s missing. couldn’t find it at the bottom of a bottle or laced inside dope. crushed up in a tablet of morphine. whatever it is, it’s gone.
elliot reads her better than expected and the weight of his words hit home in a way she can’t explain. he doesn’t want her to die and she doesn’t want to die either but can’t figure out how to live. how much more fucking cliché can she get ? she swallows. scar tissue rides with the motion.
❛ don’t think death likes me very much. beat him at his own game twice. he’s probably gonna get the jump on me when i least expect it. ❜ until then, she isn’t going anywhere. not without kicking up a fuss first.