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As the tall, dark haired women slid gracefully out of the car, she stared up at the bright, blue summer sky, and wished, wished with all her might that things could be the way they had been not so long ago. But now that could never be. Rachel looked around as the other uncomfortably dressed-up people got out of their cars. Many of them cast her pitying looks, and then quickly averted their eyes to the ground. She resented them for that pity, she had not asked for it, nor did she want it. How would they understand what she felt? She was no one to pity! How dare they! She imagined how the others must be seeing her; her long, beautiful, dark hair cascading down the back of her appropriately black dress. The ends of her hair, as well as the bottom of her flowing skirt, shifted slightly in the breeze. She adjusted her dress, threw her shoulders back, and with as much pride as she could muster, walked to the reserved seat under the tent.
As the others filled in the surrounding area, still giving her those sympathetic looks she so despised, Rachel thought back about 15 years. She had been only 20 when she first met Brian, but she knew almost instantly that they would be together for a long time. The meeting itself had not been anything spectacular or romantic. At the time, she had been living in a cramped one-bedroom apartment on the outskirts of Chicago. Her tiny apartment was only one block away from a little mom-n-pop grocery store, so whenever she needed something, she just walked. The night she met Brian had been one of those times that her fridge had been empty and she had walked to the store. She had been strolling home with her two bags of groceries, and suddenly the bottom of one of the bags decided to break, showering the sidewalk with canned food and packages of ramen. As she scrambled to pick up the fallen items, a pair of dark brown loafers stopped their movement right in front of her.
She looked up to see who the shoes belonged to and looked directly into the deepest, darkest, most beautiful eyes she had ever seen staring down at her. When their eyes met, she was suddenly overcome by the intensity of his hypnotic glance, and any words that she might have been going to say lodged themselves deep in her throat. After a moment of only gazing at each other had passed, he stuttered (obviously just as effected by the moment as she), "H--Here, let me help you with those." And that was that. After he helped her carry her groceries home, he took her to dinner, and then a year and a half later, to the altar.
As the memory of their meeting faded in her mind, Rachel suddenly slipped back into reality. She heard the droning voice of the minister and realized she would never share an intense gaze like that with her beloved again. As she sat there silently, the tears began running down her face. How much longer would she have to sit here, she wondered. Five, ten minutes? She didn't know, but the amount of time didn't really matter. It seemed like an eternity either way. Birds chirped happily in a nearby tree, and once again the memories came flooding back into her mind.
It was another beautiful summer day. Birds had been singing, exactly as they were now. And she had been sitting on a bench outside that horribly white medical center, waiting. She did not have the nerve to go inside and get the results for herself, so Brian had done the awful task for her. He had always been wonderful about things like that. She was sobbing quietly to herself, expecting the worst, and that was exactly what she got. When Brian reappeared from inside the building and took a seat next to her on the bench, he didn't even have to say anything. She looked into his deep black eyes and just knew. She would never be able to have a child. They had been trying for about two years with no success, so she had decided to go to the doctor and see if there was a medical reason. It turned out there was; she was infertile. Brian wrapped his comforting arms around her and simply held her until her shaking subsided and she was no longer weeping. He had been so supportive of her, he told her that it didn't matter to him; as long as he had her he would be happy.
Now she wished she could have even that moment back. She would no longer be able to feel the comfort of his embrace and the soothing sound of his voice when she was upset. These final thoughts brought her back once again to the disturbing present. She watched in a daze as they lowered the casket into the grave. She walked sullenly back to the car, and asked the driver to please take her home. As she put the key in the lock, and heard the familiar clink of the deadbolt, she knew what she had to do.
Rachel breezed though the living room, glancing quickly at the picture of Brian on the mantle. Then she continued through her bedroom, her long hair and flowing skirt trailing behind her. Her flight ended in the bathroom and ecstatically opened the medicine cabinet in the bathroom. Brian was always a very light sleeper, so light in fact that the doctor had prescribed sleeping pills. Fortunately for her, she had refilled the prescription just days before the fatal car accident. There were more then enough for what she planned to do. The desperate need to open the bottle put her in such a frenzy that she almost couldn't. She calmed herself down enough to figure it out how the bottle worked, then jammed as many of the blue and yellow gel caps into her mouth as she thought she could swallow. She took a swig of the day old water in the cup on the edge of the sink, and then swallowed another handful of pills. Rachel then went into their bedroom, which now belonged only to her, lay down on the bed, and waited to meet her beloved.
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