One of These People Will Die

A family of five is sitting at the dinner table. By the end of the night, one of them is going to die. None of them know this because it hasn't happened yet. As they sit around the dinner table this is what they say. 

“So Jeremy, how was school?”, his dad asks. 

“It was fine, Dad,” Jeremy replies seemingly annoyed. 

“Well, I don't know about Jeremy, but I had a great day. The whole class loved my science project on the physics of roller coasters!,” Sarah said, excited to share the good news.

“That's great, honey,” her mom said distractedly, still paying close attention to Jeremy's every move. 

Huh, Sarah thought, I expected her to be more excited about that.  Sarah knew that her mom was usually obsessed with her academic achievements since she was only twelve, and had proven herself to be a lot smarter than her older siblings. However, she also knew that for the past five years the world revolved around Jeremy, at least in the eyes of her parents. 

Five years ago, when Jeremy was ten, he was in a car crash. He was carpooling back from soccer practice in a friend's car, and the car flipped. Jeremy's injuries were so bad he had to have his leg amputated. He got a prosthetic leg soon after,  but his parents never forgot about the accident.

His parents were so concerned that for the next three years they wouldn't let him do anything or go anywhere without them constantly watching him. If he wanted to go across the street and play video games with the neighbors his dad would come with him. If he went to a birthday party his mom wouldn't be more than five feet away. And no one wants to be friends with the weirdo whose parents won't leave them alone, so he didn't have any friends. This made his parents even more concerned which continued the cycle of never leaving him alone. They only stopped hovering when he turned 14 because he started high school, and it’s a lot harder to watch every golf practice when there are no other parents. They still focused on him a lot though. Constantly asking him questions and checking on him. They were scared, of course they obssessed. They just didn’t want him to get hurt again. But to Jeremy they were just annoying, and to his siblings, it seemed like they loved him more.

Sarah was sick of hearing about Jeremy’s day, so she decided to tune out her parents, and talk to her older sister, Amelia. At 16 years old Amelia was already grown up. She was always on her phone, she spent most of her time with the boy who she’d been dating for three years, she hated talking to her younger siblings, and she couldn’t wait to leave. So when Sarah turned to talk to her she reacted hostily. 

“What do you want!?,” asked Amelia, clearly already annoyed. 

“I just want to talk to you,” Sarah said.

“Talk to Jeremy,” she said as she picked up her phone. 

“Jeremy’s boring,” Sarah replied, “I want to talk to you.” 

“Fine, what the heck do you want to talk about. The fact that there have been ten parties this month that I haven’t been invited too? Do you want to talk about how I’m pretty sure Daniel’s cheating on me? Oh I know! Let’s talk about my failing grades in almost all my classes!” 

Amelia was shouting at this point, so her parents heard the part about the failing grades. 

“What!?,” they yelled at the same time. 

“You’re failing?”, her mom asked.

“Yes, mom. I am failing Geometry, Chemistry, English, and French.” 

“How the hell are you failing all those classes?”, asked her dad.

“I don’t know I just am!” ,Amelia yelled, “Why does it matter?” 

“Well you can’t get into a good college with so many bad grades,” her mom said. 

“Mom, I don’t want to go to college. I wasn’t going to tell you this, but as soon as I turn 18 I’m going to elope with Daniel, and we’re going to get an apartment together. Although, I’m not sure if I can do that anymore because I’m 95% sure he’s cheating on me.” 

“You’re going to college!”,her dad yelled, “Fix your grades, or you’re out of this house!” 

“Good,” said Amiela, “I hate this house, and I hate you! And since when have you cared about me anyway? Since when have you cared about anyone but Jeremy?” Amelia ran to her room, and slammed the door behind her. 

“Well,” their mom said, “This has been a lovely dinner.” She picked up the dishes, washed them, and then went to her room. 

“I guess we should go to bed then,” said Sarah.

“You can do whatever you want. I’m going to go finish the video game I was playing,” said Jeremy.”

Sarah sat at the table with her father. Even after that whole explosion during dinner, Sarah was still kind of hoping she could tell him about her science project. 

“Hey dad,” she said, “My class loved my science project. Do you want to hear about it?”

“I’m kind of tired right now honey,” he said, “How about tomorrow?”

“Oh ok,” she said.

Sarah watched her dad go into his room, and then she was alone. She didn’t want to be alone though, so she decided to go to Amiela’s room. She knew that Amelia was still mad, but she also knew that Amelia’s her sister, and that she’s a nice person. So she went upstairs, and to Amelia’s room. “Amelia,” she said, “Can I come in?” Amelia didn’t say anything. “Amelia,” she said a little louder, “Please can I come in?” Still no response. “Fine, she said I’m coming in anyway.” 

Sarah opened the door and walked in, but Amelia wasn’t there.

“Mom! Dad!”, Sarah yelled, “Amelia’s not in her room.” She noticed that the window was cracked open “And the window is open,” she added.

Their parents ran into the room. 

“Oh no,” their mom said, “John we should call the police.”

“Call them,” her husband replied, “I’m going to look for her. Kids stay here.”

Jeremy and Sarah waited for five minutes after their dad left, made sure their mom wasn’t looking, and then snuck out. They decided that they didn’t want to just sit there while their sister was missing. The three of them searched with the police for six hours, but Sarah was tired, and Jeremy was pretty sure their mom was worried about him and his sister by now. So they went back inside, but their dad kept searching. He found her body at 7am the next morning.

The death of Amelia Mill is a tragic one. That night, when she went up to her room, someone was waiting for her under her bedroom window. It was her boyfriend, Daniel. 

“I know you’re cheating on me!”,she yelled down to him.

“I’m not. Read this.”,he said, tossing up a note. 

Amelia read the note. It listed all the things he liked about her, it said he cared about her, and at the bottom he wrote “I love you -Daniel.”  They had never said I love you to each other before, so she thought he must mean it.

“Come on,” Daniel yelled, “I’ve got something to show you.” 

Amelia climbed out the window, and down the side of her house. Daniel led her to his car, and she climbed in. He shut the door behind her, and sat in the driver’s seat. He started driving. They were in the car for two minutes before she realized he was drunk. 

“Daniel,” she said, “I want to get out now.” 

“No, we’re not there yet,” he responded, slurring his words.

“Please, Daniel,” she begged, “I want to get out.”

“No!” ,he yelled.

This fight went on for five minutes. Every time Daniel yelled he got more upset, and he stepped on the gas pedal a little harder. When they were going 90 mph on a road with a speed limit of 30 Amelia started to scream, but Daniel didn’t care. He went faster and faster until the car skidded off the road, and crashed into a tree. They were both dead in seconds.

The family was very different after Amelia’s death. Not only did they have one less family member they interacted very differently. Mr. and Mrs. Mill started focusing on both of their children because they realized that anything could happen to any of them, and that the only thing they can do is love them and try to protect them. Sarah and Jeremy started spending more time together, and Jeremy decided that he should try to protect his little sister. The family also learned a lot they never knew about Amelia. They already knew she was failing her classes, what they didn’t know was that she was working hard to turn her grades around. They also found out from Amelia’s classmate, Stella, that Daniel was in fact cheating on her. They still wondered if she would’ve gone to college, they still missed her, and wished she was still there, but ultimately, after years had passed, they moved on. They moved on because they had to. They moved on because all people eventually do, whether they want to or not.