Ashley sighed as she made her way over to the bookshelf in her room. She pulled out a scrapbook, the only thing in her room that wasn’t in shambles, including herself. She maneuvered her way back to her bed and placed the scrapbook in her lap and carefully opened it, scared that it could break and all the pictures would disintegrate And even though she already hated her life enough as it was, if she lost these pictures, she would surely perish. She wouldn’t have the good memories to hold onto, to let her get soberly lost in what her life had once been.

            At the beginning of the book, there were pictures of her and a young blonde woman smiling at the camera, holding each other, smiling at each other, getting lost in countless kisses. Their love for each other was consistent throughout the pictures, and the only things that changed were the backgrounds. They were at beaches, in their house, outside in their backyard, in Paris, in Venice, in Hawaii, it didn’t matter where they were, they loved each other, and it could be seen within the photographs.

            Ashley smiled weakly as she traced the features of the blonde. The blonde hair, the radiant blue eyes that were soft and kind and full of love. There were pictures of them on their wedding day, one of the best days of the brunette’s life, only to be rivaled by one other event. The caption on the page read, “Spencer and Ashley Forever” and the grim future was unknown to the young couple. How little they knew that within eight years of their marriage, their world would fall apart. Ashley continued to flip through the pages and took a long time studying each picture of her and Spencer. How she missed her wife so. The radiance, the happiness, the love, the intelligence, and the support of her wife was dearly missed. But that was Ashley’s fault as well. All of this, her pain, her misery, her need for self destruction was all caused by her.

            Ashley finally turned to the page in her scrapbook which made her chest constrict in pain and caused tears to appear in her eyes. It was a picture of her and Spencer. Her wife was behind her, their fingers were intertwined and were placed on Ashley’s abdomen, and the two had serene smiles on their faces. If you looked closely, you could see the slight bump forming on Ashley’s stomach. She continued to look through the pictures, and the memories flooded her mind. Each page depicted her growing belly and her growing love for her unborn child. Finally she reached the page with a picture of her in the hospital bed, hair a mess, holding a tiny baby boy, and Spencer was looking at the both of them with such love, that Ashley couldn’t stand to look at the picture much longer. The next pages were filled with pictures of their son’s first bath, first smile, first everything. She watched as her son grew up on the pages of the scrapbook. She finally reached the picture that she had been dreading. The picture was of the three of them on the beach, sitting on a towel, and grinning at the camera. She carefully let her eyes and hands trace over the features of her three year old boy. She finally spoke the name that she hadn’t been able to say for two years. “Tate,” was all she could cry out as the tears streamed down her face, and one hit the photo. It was the last photo that they had taken together, the last photo of their little boy. The last photo before the accident that haunted Ashley every day.