If asked, anyone in her senior class would say she was easily the nicest girl in the school. She was friends with everyone; the jocks, the geniuses, the artists, and even the druggies. She was most commonly seen racing through the hallways at the last minute, her long, curly blonde hair whipping behind her, light bouncing off of the glitter—at least two different colors—that covered her eye lids. She would smile and shout back a hello whether she knew the person or not. She was averagely smart, usually the class’s entertainment when her mental filter would fail her and she would blurt out some odd phrase or question that would send the entire class into uncontrollable laughter. She was happy. She was amazing. She was perfect. But, in all of her glory, she did have one fatal flaw; Brooke was careless.

One beautiful Thursday afternoon, the last Thursday before her senior year would start exactly one week later, she was running late for work. Speeding down a country road in her dark blue Ford Explorer, sun roof down, music on full blast, seatbelt off. Brooke never drove with her seatbelt on; it was too restraining. It was her way of laughing in the face of the law, her own way of rebelling.

She glanced down at the hideous red and black polyester shirt, only to notice that she had forgotten her mandatory uniform name tag at home. As she was debating whether or not to turn the car around to go and retrieve the little gold plate, she felt her cell phone vibrate. A sigh of relief escaped her mouth. It was a text message from her mother. She had found her name tag and would meet her at the restaurant if she wanted her to. Brooke was in the middle of replying when suddenly she felt the car jerk to her right. Shocked at the sudden movement, she panicked. Brooke grabbed the wheel and jerked it in the opposite direction. Instead of setting the car back on course, it went rolling into the field on the other side of the road. The metal mass rolled three times, tearing up the field and leaving truck-shaped patches of dirt in its wake. Brooke went crashing through the windshield, landing a few feet away from the now totaled car, gone, at seventeen, in the blink of an eye.