Supposed To

“It was never supposed to be this way…” Lydia sighed as she kicked a rock with her leather boot on the city’s sidewalk. Then again, she thought, what did I expect? To knock on Skip’s door and have him forgive me for faking my death? What a fool she was for believing that he would. How could she even think that she and Skip could pick up where they left off like her three-year absence was nothing? Lydia hated that she even had the slightest bit of hope that she and Skip could be best friends again like they were since they were ten or even go back to dating again like they had been since junior year of high school. How could Lydia just expect to move back into their apartment right outside of their college, go back to the simple routine they shared. Lydia smiled as old memories of their time together resurfaced. Skip asking her to their senior prom and even though he had this big plan worked out, he blurted it out two days too soon walking home from school because he was awful at keeping secrets. Living together at college and sharing bowls of Captain Crunch as they studied late into the night. Driving to nearby towns to explore and get away for a moment on the weekends. Going on adventures in the summer. Spending almost every summer Sunday on the beach. To Skip, and to the world, Lydia Jade Swanson died in a car crash. Skip had to come to terms that his girlfriend of six years was gone. He even had gone to her funeral and watched as they lowered her casket into the ground. And she only knew that because she too was at her own funeral, standing far away on the edge of the cemetery. It was something she would never wish on her worse enemies. The look on Skip’s face when he opened his apartment door…like he saw a ghost. That’s what she was now; a living ghost. Lydia tugged on the oversized hood on her grey wool coat, pulling it further over her box-dyed auburn hair neatly french braided. She kept her head down, shoved her hands into her front coat pockets, and walked at a steady pace blending in with the crowds; something she was now good at. She couldn’t risk being seen still. Lydia didn’t choose this, she didn’t want this. She wanted…

“Lydia! Wait!”