Last Seen Dead | ONC 2023

7 | a cruel irony

This was a side of Florence that he thought he might never see. For as long as he had known her, she was always the kind of person to go along with what other people wanted from her. Some might say that she was a classic people pleaser, trying to make everyone else except herself happy.

And as much as Ethan tried to convince her to make herself a priority, she wouldn't listen. She claimed to have even tried therapy at one point but found it too much of a hassle to continue going. She also claimed that other people had worse problems than her and there was no point.

For the longest time, Ethan racked his brain, trying to think of ways to reach her. They weren't super close but she was still his friend, at the time, and he hated to see her suffer. It was even worse because of how she couldn't see the ways she added to her own misery because of the company she kept. Exhibit number one being her choice to stay with Kevin despite everything.

That night wasn't even the first time she vented to him about Kevin but it was the first night that his words seemed to reach her, even if he didn't know it at the time. It was obvious looking back now, and especially even more obvious looking at the messages she sent people the day after.

If Ethan remained an influence in her life, could the changes have continued?

It was already obvious that Florence saw that night as more than just sex, especially considering the conversation they had right after they did it. He could tell that she felt a real connection with him and she probably thought they might even have a future together, but then the truth came out.

Ethan couldn't hold back his words anymore, and he told her off, then and there.

Of course she deserved the truth but he definitely could have been gentler in his delivery.

It was the first big fight they had and maybe because of the intimacy they shared right before, his words held more weight than they usually did. Maybe if she listened more to him instead of protesting and eventually running away, things would have turned out differently for her.

Then again, working on your personal flaws wouldn't prevent dying in a car accident.

So, in the end, she would still be just as dead as she was right now, just with less baggage.

Any progress that that night had on her was eventually lost because in the end, she did go back to Kevin. How in the world she did that, Ethan would never know. Well, he could know, if he wanted to. There was probably some answers floating around in her digital files to explain that.

After all, she did end up getting married to Kevin, which she couldn't have done if they hadn't made up, one way or another. It was more likely that Florence had given up on her newfound standards instead of Kevin putting in the time to learn and grow as a person to do better.

Florence even invited Ethan to their wedding but he politely declined, claiming to be busy the day of, even though he wasn't. Busy with what? He hardly had a life in those days, and even now, his life was nothing more than just trying to survive each day and pay all of his bills on time.

He just didn't want to see her again. He didn't want to look into her eyes and realize that she was just as lost as she was when she begged for his help that night. It was a sickening kind of dependency that she was looking for, and if she couldn't fix her own problems, why should he?

It also didn't help that they hadn't talked since that night either. She ghosted him every time he tried to start a conversation with her, to try and make amends. So, when the wedding invitation showed up at his door step, the first thing he did was rip it apart, bit by bit, and threw it away.

It was a cruel sort of irony now that he was forced to clean up the mess of her life after her death. Was it too late to delete everything now and pretend as if she never existed to him?

He wondered if that was even an option.

Although, he wouldn't even have to do that himself. They did give him a time limit and if he let the time pass on its own, everything would be deleted anyways. He wouldn't have to do a thing.

Yet, thinking about all her information vanishing just like that, made him feel sick to his stomach. For some strange reason, he couldn't stop feeling like he needed closure in another way.

And maybe the only way to get that closure would be to get to the bottom of why Florence went back to Kevin, and what attracted her to him in the first place. She always had a thing of going after emotionally unavailable men, the type of guys that chewed her up and spit her out.

Ethan told her that night that she deserved better and maybe in the end, she disagreed.

As much as he didn't want to keep thinking about that night, everything seemed to back to it, to what happened, to what he said, and how those things slowly seeped into Florence's mind. It was more than just sex, even to him, because as much as he wanted to deny it, he learned a lot, too.

About himself. About Florence. And about how far he was willing to go to help others, even if it had felt like using her at the same time. There was a reason why people used sex to escape. Why it was the primary means of running from your problems and why Florence was so damn good at it.

So, for once, he let himself relive that night, allowing the memories to rise up to the surface.