The Color of Your Heart

1. After five years of lonely and miserable marriage, I was finally set free. I died. In the last moment of my life, I whispered,  "Goodbye, Benedict. May my soul rest in peace forever. I wish I have never married you. I wish I have never met you in my life." My prayers, however, were not answered. I returned from the realm of death. I saw eerie colors on people. And…I met Benedict again. 2. "Michelle! Wake up! Why on earth are you still in bed? Hurry— Get up get up! C'mon! You're gonna be late!" Someone was yelling right in my ear. My eyelids felt as heavy as lead and it was just too difficult for me to lift them up and open my eyes. Who's yelling at me anyway? I had drawn my last breath in that gorgeous but heartless mansion. Why do I need to wake up? Why do i have to get up? I had passed away, alone! I can't wake up anymore and don't need to wake up anymore! Gonna be late? For what?  I would never be late for anything again, because no one in this world will be looking forward to an appointment with me. I'm dead, remember? Then there's this even louder scream, "You are kidding me! Still f*****g asleep? I swear, missy, if you don't get up right away, you'll regret it!" Mom? It suddenly came to me that, it was... my mother's voice? ! How is that possible though?  I married Benedict Dawson in order to have enough money for her treatment, to keep her alive. She did hang in there bravely for three more years, and died right before the day of my third wedding anniversary. She had been taken away from me for two years. Death stood silently between us, for seven hundred and thirty days, till the day I joined her. Yes, I joined her, with my own death!  Is that why I'm hearing her voice? Are we finally united after death? At this point, I found it hard to describe what kind of complex emotion I am harboring in my heart. Pure surprise? Unbelievably ecstasy? Completely shocked? Unspeakable fear? Maybe a bit of everything. "Mom?" I opened my eyes and heard my confused voice. That was indeed my mother. She looked, however, very different from the mother I cherished in my memory. This face in front of me was much younger. It hadn't been tortured by years of endless pain of her failing organs. Every cell of it was full of vivid and energetic anger. And it was... very red. Yes, her face is... shining with redness. Not the kind of normal blushing you would get when you're shy or angry. It was like the color of the red paint. It was as if someone just painted over her whole face with a red marker! I was stunned. 3. "Move your a*s to the bathroom, young lady! You've got ten minutes to get everything done!" Mom warned. Now seeing me eventually opened my eyes, my red-faced mother finally could cool down a bit from her boiling anger. My mind already went blank at first sight of her and could not think clearly. So I just followed my instinct and listened to the direction given by her.  I got out of bed with an almost mechanical way of movement, and went to the bathroom like a broken robot. As soon as I walked through the door of the bathroom, I was face to face with a large mirror on the opposite side of wall. I stopped moving. My whole body seemed to be drenched from head to toe by a basin of ice water, and I could feel my blood turned icy-cold. Who's that face in the mirror? That was NOT me! 4. Step by step, like a zombie that had just risen from the grave, I slowly staggered towards the mirror.  My fingers touched the cold and smooth surface of the mirror, caressing that most familiar and most unfamiliar face. Well, to be fair, this WAS me. It's just, I hadn't seen this face for 12 years. It belonged to the 11-year-old me. Yes, I went back in time, back to when I was 11 years old. This was year 2010. Obama was still the president of US. Apple released its first iPad to the world. And girls would not dress up as Princess Anna and Princess Elsa in Halloween, because Disney hadn't announced Frozen yet.  In the mirror, a single teardrop suddenly fell from my eye.  I was given a chance to be reborn, a second chance to live, by some unknown being. Tears began to stream down my face. My nightmare hasn't started yet, and my mother is still healthy and energetic.  This time, I will not marry Benedict Dawson again, and I will not repeat the excruciating tragedy of my previous life. It's really not that hard. We did not meet each other till 2017. All I need to do is to pick a different college this time. I'll never run into him and he would not even know my existence in this new life. We belonged to two different worlds, and we should have stayed so forever! I swear, this time, I will protect everyone I love, including myself. 5. One image suddenly flashed through my mind, the image of my mom swallowing that orange powder thing.  OMG! That Indian orange powder! My hand already opened the medicine cabinet behind the mirror even before I knew it. Thank god, it's not there! My mom did not start to take it yet! And I shall ensure that she'll never put that orange powder in her mouth. 6. I was still in a shock of disbelief when I got into the car. "You know Michelle, you're a big girl now. For God's sake you're a middle school student now!" Mom went on her usual nagging while driving. "You can't just stay in bed in the morning. You've got to try to get up. You've got to try to be independent. Mommy works hard enough. I'm someone else's maid at work, Okay! And I sure don't want to be your maid at home, you got that?" "Okay.", I replied gently. "What's the matter with you?", My mother instantly turned to look at me, and she looked suspiciously, "Shouldn't you be like, 'I know! I know! I know!' then do that rolling your eyes thing and give me that look?" I wanted to smile, I knew what look she's talking about. "I'm just…glad to hear you talking, mom. I miss your voice."  I haven't heard this voice for two years, two of my loneliest and miserable years, the last two years of my previous life. I looked out the car window. Some soft white clouds was floating in the clear blue sky, like a sweet dream sleeping peacefully in its bed. The best time of the city, the best time of my life. Mom's fingers patted on the steering wheel a couple of time. She couldn't help but glanced at me again, and suddenly reached out to touch my forehead.  "Are you okay, Michelle? You have been acting very strange ever since this morning, like, you are still in a dream or something." She asked. I was in a dream, the sweetest dream I could ever imagine. I smiled for the first time in my new life. "That's because...Mom, I love you." Even with your scary weird red face. As soon as she heard what I said, my mother turned green, literally. She's no longer red. Now her face looked like someone had painted over it with a thick layer of green spinach smoothie, mixed with a few dollops of pink strawberry puree. Yep, my mom looked terrible. 7. On the road where the middle school was located, my mother's face turned red again—there were just too many cars near the school, and the traffic was completely jammed. Our car moved forward slowly like an old turtle.  With a face full of red paint, my mother turned on her favorite channel of communication —nagging: "What is the school doing, hah? Why the hell are they all stuck here? Are they throwing a f*****g party in the parking lot? I need to go to work! People need to go to work! I can't wait here forever. Oh my god, how long is this going to take? This is such a nightmare. We should have never applied for this school! What the hell, why is this car still not moving? Move—" That's when an unpleasant memory, which I thought I had long forgotten, came back to me from another life.