Her New Beginning, My Final Ending Chapter 05

Her New Beginning, My Final Ending Chapter 05

My parents, Claire, and Adrian did not sleep at all that night.

They kept vigil beside my body at the funeral home, sitting there in a daze until dawn, and only when morning finally

came did Dad seem able to speak.

“Let’s go

His voice was hoarse, so rough it barely sounded like his own.

“It’s time for Natalie’s body to be cremated…*

I stayed curled up in a corner, watching as the staff wheeled my remains into the cremation chamber.

The moment the iron door began to close. Claire finally seemed to break. She clapped a hand over her mouth, trying to

hold back the wave of nausea rising inside her, but in the end she still doubled over and retched. Her stomach was

empty. Nothing came up.

Tears streamed down her face as she cried in that quiet, strangled way that sounded even more painful than screaming.

“It’s all my fault. All of it.”

“If I had let Natalie out that day, she could still have been saved

“It’s my fault. I made her suffer for so many years, and in the end I got her killed. It’s all my fault…”

Adrian stood off to the side with red-rimmed eyes, watching as my ashes were slowly drawn out and carefully placed into

an urn.

Mom carried my ashes home in her arms and set the urn in my room.

It felt as though traces of me still lingered everywhere in that room, and yet at the same time, it felt as though I was

nowhere at all.

Only then did she realize that ever since they had started favoring Claire, my room had slowly disappeared, little by little

turning into Claire’s dressing room. At night, I had either slept beside Claire or in the bare guest room with nothing in

My clothes and jewelry were gone too. Everything left behind had once belonged to Claire

Over the years, because of that death prophecy, they had replaced every trace of me piece by piece, all for Claire’s sake

This isn’t fair.

Mom’s voice was hollow when she spoke.

The floating comments foretold Claire’s death, but they never once said anything about Natalie. Why?”

They were so powerful, so exact, so why didn’t they predict the death of my other daughter too”

She lost control again, beating her chest as she sobbed in agony.

“Why didn’t they say anything? Why?”

My room echoed with Mom’s heartbroken cries, while Dad sat on the edge of my bed, tears slipping down his face in silence as he ran his hand over my old school photos again and again.

Ever since that prophecy had appeared, they had been so intent on saving Claire that even the family portraits we used to take every six months no longer included me.

I had protested before.

But every time, they had only looked at me with impatience.

“Natalie Whitmore, can you stop being so selfish?”

“You’ll have plenty of chances to take pictures with us later. But what if Claire only has a few years left?”

And now, I would never get another chance to be in a family photo with them.

Dad lifted a hand to cover his face, but the tears kept slipping through his fingers anyway.

Claire sat on the couch in the living room, still holding the wedding gift I had prepared for her.

Even if that wedding had only been part of their plan to break the prophecy. I had once promised I would place that gift

in her hands myself.

She slowly opened the box.

Inside was a necklace I had bought with every last bit of money I had.

She had always loved necklaces, so every year on her birthday I gave her one.

She used to laugh and tell me that even if a husband bought her jewelry someday, she would still only wear the

necklaces I gave her.

And yesterday had been her birthday.

Through all those years, I had never missed a single birthday.

Only this year, Claire would never receive one from me again.

There would never be another after this.

One tear after another fell onto the necklace as Claire stroked it with trembling fingers, until even the chain was wet

with her tears.

Her shoulders shook as she cried.

I bit my lip hard, doing everything I could to hold back my own tears.

I understood their reasons, and while I had resented them. I had never truly blamed them.

My parents were not cruel, and Claire least of all

I had only been a step away from happiness, close enough to almost touch it, and that was what filled me with the

deepest regret.