Skin Like Porcelain

She was as beautiful in death as in life. Her long, loose curls framed her snow-white face, and her eyes were closed in peace and eternal rest. Gone were the lines of stress and strain from her young face, but also was the light from her stormy gray eyes, the ones I had come to love so dearly. Her dark jeans and the black top she had constructed herself—I remembered her showing it to me, bouncing with pride—were now stained with crimson splatter, haunting reminders of a life taken too young. The dark red line that ran across her neck held only signs of desperation, but the bruises on her body were telltale signs it was someone else’s choice and not her own.

Outside of the morgue, I had waited for countless hours, my head in my hands, shocked and numb beyond the point of tears. In my lap had lain the realization of her greatest dream—an acceptance letter to Yale Law—a day too late. The door had opened, the coroner had invited me in, and I had followed, slow and shaking. She looked beautiful, the prettiest I had ever seen her. It was as if she had been bathed in moonlight, and I forgot for a moment that I would never be able to hold her in my arms as I had been longing to do since the day we met, four years ago. Then I saw the cut, the dark line that contrasted so sharply with her fair skin, and my heart clenched. Her blood had been splattered on her jeans and there it mingled in with the numerous other stains, but the top… The top she had worked so hard on, had been so proud of, was ruined.

I will never know why that small detail triggered my tears, the unending tidal wave of sobs and wails. In grief, nothing makes sense. Nothing is rational; nothing is predictable. I can only assume it was the dreadful thought that, immediately after her death, the one thing I knew she would have liked to be remembered for was ruined. Destroyed. “Leitha,” I moaned, and I reached out for her hand. It was cold in mine, and her arm held no resistance to my grasp. I cried harder, but the choking had lessened and it became a silent stream of tears. I laid it back to where it had rested next to her body, and put my hand on her cheek. She was so cold, so deathly frigid… “Leitha,” I whispered again, and ran a hand through her hair. I leaned down, and did what I had always wanted to do—closing my eyes, I kissed her, my lips softly grazing hers. As I pulled away, I looked at her in hopeless desperation, but it was to no avail. I could not wake her, no matter how hard I tried. I could not raise the dead.