Darkness masked her stone cold features creating a fictional mysterious glint to her. Beauty covered her and claimed her long before childhood had. Yet it forgot to grace her with the most crucial aspect of true beauty. The smile. She had once held one, but it had vanished before many had the opportunity of seeing this beauty.

Many men fell for this radiating woman, love at first sight they all claimed. They promised her the world, yet for every offer she fabricated some justification as to why he wouldn’t suit her. She spoke of how life was full of opportunities that were intended only as a mechanism to consume her time away from the fate that she had chosen.

Eventually years passed alone in her fortress to which held no inner beauty. It seized her and held captive that outer beauty, displaying her face for all to see but no one to got the opportunity to know the true person she was. Many attempted to speak with her, but a door was slammed in their faces before any words were exchanged. She held the capability of giving any human butterflies in their stomachs but never claimed them herself.

Some say she never wanted to hurt, which only caused her more pain. Others speak of an empathetic-less witch whom used her beauty to draw in misfortunate mortals. Then she would cast away their souls. Either story fell short of her barriers as she closeted herself up every moment of her later life.

For those that leaned for the witchcraft theory a part of me had to prove them right. Within my quest to do so I only stumbled upon the exact opposite. One night came, it was her very last. I stood below her window as I was dared to by some immature pranksters. We sought another reason to make a fool of her.

A small moan of pain escaped her window followed by a series of weeping and stutters. Right before it all fell to a deathly silence she spoke the only words I’ve ever heard her say. Her voice was weak and timid, full of sorrow and a hit of anticipation as it spoke, “I’m ready, Jay.”

The house fell to silence and I crept back to my childish games with my companion. We laughed about her for the rest of the night. We mocked the sound of her voice, the words she spoke. We laughed at her insanity. She always ended up the punch line in all of our jokes.

That next day we learned of her death. Honestly, we thought nothing of it. She had no effect on us, because we never really knew her. But they all spoke as if they knew her. “She was so young!” “Oh! What a gorgeous face!” “She had no reason to go!“ They didn’t know. Nobody knew. I didn’t even know, not until years later.

A decade had passed, and so had my mother. I wandered the cemetery late at night. It was lit with a few dimly hanging lights to guide my way. It wasn’t until that night while looking for my mother’s I stumbled upon the beautiful woman’s headstone.

“Emily Marie: The Beautiful Girl that Never Could Love.” Engraved into the stone for eternity this woman’s life was condensed into this one line. My heart went out for her. A pang of hurt hung deep in my soul. My eyes trailed to the next headstone. “John Smith: The Man that Loved too Much.” My vision fixated on a small jar placed at the base of his headstone. A piece of paper, untouched by the elements yet withered by age, rested calmly in the jar. “Dear Jay, I’ll be there soon.”

My mind flashed back to the day when I was eight and I stumbled upon her last words. My heart skipped a beat because I finally came to the realization that Emily Marie wasn’t “The girl that never could love,” if anyone had taken the time to see they’d realize that she was someone completely different. She was “Emily Marie: The girl that refound her heart in heaven.”