“She hissed, right there behind my ear, and I had the horrible idea she was spitting maggots into my hair. Why maggots were a problem when I was about to be dead, I didn’t know, but the idea completely grossed me out. “In the womb I heard you die, for no one lives when a banshee cries.” I wasn’t just going to die. I was going to be rhymed to death. That simply wasn’t fair.”

“You deserve to die," I whisper, suddenly realizing Iv'e said the words aloud."Excuse me?" "Nothing.""Not nothing. You just told me that I deserve to be maggot feed.""Not maggot feed, just-""Dead!""Forget it" "I don't know why I said that. Just daydreaming, I guess.""Daydreaming about my death?""Forget it", I repeat."Are you sure you aren't still mad that I wouldn't let you borrow my vintage fishnet leggings?""More like I didn't want to borrow them,”

“For me, the dying part wasn’t so horrible. I was only in pain for a few moments before death arrived. For me, the difficult part was having so many things that I had yet to experience, leaving behind people that I cared about. I wasn’t through living.”

“So much for playing nice.Tired, I let my eyes shut while they argued, hoping I didn’t die in the interim and make the problem moot. I wasn’t ever going to get my water. Ever.”

“I thought over and over about what I was going to do when Carly overdosed and died. How would we go on? And then I knew: I wouldn’t go on. And then I realized that it was just going to be too painful to actually have to watch her die. Right in front of me. My daughter was dying. That’s when I snapped.”

“I tried. I tried to burn that memory of my regret. But I wasn’t dead yet, I was just on my way to dying, and it’s harder to burn memories when you’ve still got life left. When you’re alive you have to learn how to live with things like regret.”