Chapter 1: If There's A Next Life... Just Go without Me This Time

Lily's POV

The cold cuts through my skin like needles as I leave the rooftop. Gravity pulls me down, and for a moment, everything feels weightless. Like I'm floating instead of falling. Then comes the impact.

Pain explodes through my skull as my head hits the concrete. The Christmas gift flies from my hands, the carefully wrapped box skittering across the pavement. Blood, warm and sticky, pools beneath my head, contrasting with the ice-cold ground.

From somewhere above, panicked voices drift down.

"I didn't push her! I swear I didn't!"

"It was you! You pushed her!"

"We were just trying to scare her! This wasn't supposed to happen!"

Sirens wail in the distance, getting closer. People gather around me, their voices a blur of shock and horror. But their words sound muffled, like I'm listening from underwater.

So this is what dying feels like. The darkness creeps in at the edges of my vision. So cold... so painful...

Those boys up there must be terrified right now. I don't blame them, really. If I had never existed, wouldn't everything have been different?

My consciousness drifts, and suddenly I'm no longer on that frozen pavement. I'm back in that dim wooden shack in the mountains, small and safe in my mother's arms.

"Lily, mama wants to tell you a secret," Mama whispers, her voice like silk in the darkness. She holds me close, her fingers gently stroking my hair. "Mama is actually from a big, important family. We have a huge house with gardens and a piano... Mama used to wear beautiful dresses and go to the finest schools..."

Even now, dying on this cold street, I remember how my eyes sparkled with wonder. I grabbed onto her hand so tightly, believing every word.

"Really, mama? We'll really have that kind of life?"

Tears glistened in her eyes, but her voice remained gentle. "Yes, baby. I promise. Someday mama will take you away from here, back to our real home. You'll wear pretty dresses too, learn to play piano, become a real lady..."

I was so naive then. I believed every single word. I didn't know mama had been kidnapped fifteen years ago on a dark night. I didn't know she'd been forced to marry that monster. I was just a little girl full of hope, believing fairy tales could come true.

The next memory crashes over me like a wave. The day everything changed. I was fifteen when the news broke.

"Breaking news from Appalachia: Local man arrested for murder of traveling salesman..."

The television screen showed my father. That piece of shit who'd terrorized us for years, being dragged away in handcuffs. Death penalty, they said. The media swarmed our mountain town like locusts, and that's when they found her.

"My God! This is Rose Whitman! The banker's daughter who disappeared fifteen years ago!"

Expensive cars pulled up to our shabby wooden house. Men in tailored suits stepped out, their faces masks of shock and disgust.

"Rose... dear God, Rose!" The tall man had to be her brother. I could see the resemblance even through mama's trauma.

But mama just stood there, empty-eyed and shaking. Like she didn't recognize her own family. And when I tried to walk toward these strangers who were supposed to be my relatives, I met looks of pure revulsion.

"Who is this girl?" a reporter asked.

"She's... she's Rose's daughter..." the man in the suit replied, his voice heavy with reluctance.

That was the moment I thought our fairy tale was finally beginning. I didn't understand why these people who should have been my family looked at me with such cold eyes. I only knew we were finally leaving that horrible place.

But the mansion in Boston, as beautiful as mama had described, became just another kind of prison.

Every time mama saw me, she would tremble uncontrollably, tears streaming down her face. The doctors said I was a "trigger." A living reminder of her worst trauma.

"The child can't be around Rose," Uncle Robert declared. "She'll make Rose's condition worse."

"Why did she have to come with us?" Nathan, my half-brother, spat. "She's not even really family!"

I ate alone in the kitchen after everyone else finished their meals. The servants called me "the girl" instead of by name. I lived in a separate wing of the house, as far from mama as possible.

"Can I... can I go to school?" I asked timidly one day. "I want to learn to take care of myself so I won't bother anyone anymore."

"Fine," Uncle Robert said dismissively. "Give her something to do so she stops upsetting Rose."

I thought returning to mama's family would give us the fairy tale life she'd promised. But I learned that I would always be the person who shouldn't exist. I had that monster's blood running through my veins, and it made everyone hate me. Including myself.

School became its own hell. It didn't take long for my story to spread.

"Did you know she's that murderer's daughter? The one on TV!"

"Yeah! Her dad killed someone! It was all over the news!"

First, they tore up my textbooks. Then they threw my backpack in the trash. They wrote "MURDERER'S DAUGHTER" on my uniform in permanent marker. But the worst part was when they moved beyond words.

The pushes started small, but escalated to kicks and punches. I came home covered in bruises and cuts, making up stories about falling down stairs.

"Why are you always injured?" Uncle Robert asked with irritation rather than concern.

"I... I fell. On the stairs," I lied, wrapping my arms around my ribs where they'd kicked me.

I couldn't tell them the truth. They already saw me as a burden. If they knew I was bringing shame to the family name at school, they'd hate me even more.

Every night I treated my wounds alone in my room, biting down on a towel to muffle my sobs.

Maybe this was always my fate. I carry that monster's blood. I'm destined to suffer for his sins. As long as I could finish school and move far away from mama, she'd never have to look at me and remember those terrible times again.

But tonight. This Christmas night. This was my breaking point.

I made her a present. Something small and simple, crafted with all the love I couldn't express. I planned to leave it on her doorstep, maybe with a note saying it was from a secret admirer.

But when I crept up to the mansion's windows, I saw something that shattered what was left of my heart.

Mama sat by the fireplace with her family, laughing. Actually laughing. A bright, beautiful sound I'd never heard from her before. Her face glowed with happiness as she talked with Nathan and Uncle Robert.

"This Christmas is perfect," she said, her voice full of warmth. "I finally feel like we're a complete family again."

Nathan smiled and hugged her. "Mom, you look so much better. It's like we have our real family back."

She's so happy. I'd never seen her smile like that since we left the mountains. Without me there, this is how joyful she could be.

I backed away from the window, clutching the gift to my chest. I couldn't bring myself to interrupt her happiness. She deserved this peace, this joy. And she could only have it without me.

Walking back through the dark streets, I ran into them. The boys from school who made every day a nightmare.

"Well, well. If it isn't the murderer's daughter. What are you doing out on Christmas night? Did your family kick you out?"

"Probably. Who wants to spend Christmas with a killer's kid?"

They followed me to the shopping center, pushing and shoving, driving me higher and higher until we reached the rooftop. It was supposed to be just another cruel joke, just more humiliation.

But one push led to another, and then I was falling.

Now here I am, bleeding out on the concrete, feeling my life slip away with each heartbeat.

So this is how it ends. Maybe it's better this way. Mama will be happier without me. She'll find someone new, start a real family, and finally forget all those painful memories. I'm just the reminder of her worst nightmare. And when nightmares disappear, people can finally dream again.

My vision blurs as the cold seeps deeper into my bones. In the distance, I can hear the paramedics arriving, but it feels too late. Too far away.

"Mom," I whispered with my last breath, tasting blood on my lips. "If there's a next life... just go without me this time. I won't follow you anymore... It really... hurts so much..."

The world fades to black, and I feel myself letting go of everything. The pain, the loneliness, the desperate hope that had been keeping me going for so long.