Framed

Flashback Three.

"Since when did you get so obsessed with country?" Mani giggles as Dinah sways her head to the music. They're at the beach in mid-July, the evening in its earliest moments, around five or six in the afternoon. It's just the two of them laying down on some beach towels that Mani takes around regularly in her car, some empty boxes of pizza providing the kindling  for their bonfire. They're just sitting next to each other now, watching the views - the Pacific Ocean, and one another.

"It's only this one," Dinah grins, breathing in the salty breeze that weaves through their hair. "I saw it on Glee, and turns out, it was a bop."

"It's one of the sadder songs I've heard - and you're calling it a bop." Mani rolls her eyes in fake exasperation.

"Yes." Dinah nods, showing gladness that Mani finally seems to get her affection for the song, before beginning to sing. "If I die young, bury me in satin."

"Lay me down on a bed of roses," Mani finishes the line for her. "Sink me in the river, at dawn."

"Send me away with the words of a love song." Dinah finishes, looking out into the ocean. "I don't want to die with any regrets. I want closure before I go, so if there is an afterlife, I won't spend all my time kicking my dumb ass for something I screwed up on while I was here on earth."

"You're only sixteen, Dinah. Why are you thinking about that now?" Mani watches as Dinah's smile faded into a pensive expression, the firelight flickering shades of red that shadow on her face.

"I don't know, really." she begins, curling her legs up and holding them down with both arms. "It's complicated to talk about. But it's a feeling that has always been there."

"What feeling?" Mani questions.

Dinah looks at Mani intensely, right into her eyes, and says, "The feeling that I'll die young."