Reddit Stories 2019

Summer Fling

"Look, Diana, can we talk about this?" I asked the nurse, rising from the surgery table. I ignored the rest of the panicked medical staff. Some of them tried to push me back down on the table, not knowing what else to do. The others backed away with wide eyed fear. I didn't blame them. I freaked out the first few times it happened to me, too.

Things were dull after the 98th attempt at life.

Diana ignored me as she marched out the doors. This happened every time. Almost every time. Something stupid would happen - like now, a cut in the wrong place by my heart - and she would swoop in, undo the damage and just disappear before I could even ask a question.

I wouldn't let her get away this time.

"Scuse me," I said as I slipped around the medical hands still brave enough to hold me back. I had a few minutes before the pain or anesthetic would kick back and, God, I hoped the latter came first. But I had even less time until Diana disappeared. I wasn't sure what the extent of her magic abilities - and I decided it was magic for sure after spending my thirties researching it - but I wouldn't be surprised if she could teleport away. Afterall, she always found her way to me in just a couple minutes.

Stumbling out to the hall, ignoring the people screaming at my gaping chest, I hurried after her. Diana walked at an infuriating pace. Just fast enough to keep her distance, but just slow enough to stay in eyesight. If I didn't know better, I'd think it was-

Oh my God, it was deliberate. That was just petty.

She ignored my calls as she waited for the elevator. But I had her trapped now. With a burst of speed one might call surprising for a woman in her fifties with her lungs half spilling out, I charged at the elevator, slipping in just before they closed.

Diana didn't look surprised. She looked annoyed.

"Ha!" I said triumphantly from my position on the floor. I never considered myself gifted at interior design, but the red splotches of blood seemed to accentuate the tiling quite nicely.

Or maybe that was the drugs coming back.

I hit the stop button on the elevator, locking Diana in with me. Unless, of course, she did have magic teleportation powers.

"Look, Diana, we need to talk," I said from my spot on the floor. Standing seemed particularly difficult at the moment. "You can't keep doing this. Yeah, I appreciated the second, third, and tenth chance at life. But I think the universe is trying to compensate at this point. Don't you see the damage you're causing?"

Diana's focus was on her phone, texting away, probably to whatever being gifted her powers. Only the subtle side-eyed glance gave any hint that she was even listening. But, hey! That was progress.

"Do you know how hard it was so send Wendy away? We built a life together! And I thought that maybe, just maybe, if I convinced her to go, you would leave me alone. But you won't."

Nothing.

"I've died three times already this week. Do you understand how rough that is?"

Still nothing.

Pushing against the wall and using every ounce of strength I had, I slowly stood, hoping that I could be somewhat on eye level. Hard to do when her eyes were purposefully looking the other way. "Diana, I made a woman who loved me, who was willing to accept this crazy thing that keeps happening to me - I made that woman leave so I could protect her. If you're upset with me or obsessed with me, I don't care. But you keep bringing me back, and things keep happening."

Diana walked over the elevator buttons, examining them in silence. I would have thought she was mute, but I heard her talk before. I remembered her voice being soft, but I barely remembered it at all. Almost a hundred deaths and forty years would do that.

"Diana, four hundred people died in that plane crash. Children died."

Diana's grip tightened on her phone. At least she wasn't completely heartless.

Not like I was gonna be if I didn't get my chest patched up ba-dum-tish.

"Diana, please," I said, struggling to keep to my feet. I could feel the numbness creep its way up my legs. When whatever magic she used faded, it went fast. "Please just let me die."

Without a word or even a glance to me, Diana pulled the button. The elevator moved, I fell, and the world went black.

The first thing I noticed was the beeping. Then the softness of the bed. Then the realization that the bed wasn't that soft and was actually sorta uncomfortable. Finally, I opened my eyes to a hospital room where a worried looking nurse slowly filled the water in my vase. She stared at me with wide eyes as I slowly shifted in bed, clearly wanting to ask some questions but probably afraid my chest would spring open if she did.

I flashed her a smile. "Probably should've used some more anesthetic, right?"

Without giving me the laugh I deserved, the nurse hurried out of the room, leaving me to my white hospital walls, violet violets, and old polaroid.

The dread set back in. The three girls in the picture were laughing in the water at a lake. The water was the kind of crystal blue you just can't find anymore and, even faded as it was in the picture, it looked so clear and inviting. Diana had her arm wrapped around me, her hand on my waist. My sister splashed us both.

It was the last good memory I had of her.

That was practically my last memory of her period.

It took me years to wake up without nightmares from that crash. I still had them sometimes. Flashes of me standing there in a daze, unable to do anything but watch in horror. That was the last time I took a trip to the lake. The last time I even visited the state. I blamed myself for not taking the time to say goodbye. Too afraid to admit to my parents what they already knew. But if I had, we would have missed the light, just barely, and the truck completely. I was told by everyone that it was a miracle I survived, but it felt like a curse at the time.

I didn't expect the curse to follow me.

I turned the picture over. There was no date. No names. Just a heart and a single word in my gel-inked handwriting. A single broken promise.

Always.