Becoming My Own Guardian Angel

Lily Morrison didn't have the best life.

Her mom was a drug addict who could often be found passed high or in a dead-like state on the couch. At one point, the nine-one-one dispatchers recognized Lily's voice and knew her by name.

Drugs helped Mrs. Morrison grieve over her husband's death who passed away seven years ago of cancer. Lily's stepfather wasn't any better. In fact, he was worse. He was the reason she feared her own bed. She lied awake at night, staring at her door that she knew her stepfather was going to burst open with his hands on his pants zipper.

You know what they say about children of drug addicts. They often go down the same path as their parents. Lily became a drug addict when she got into high school. It was the only way she could think of to forget about her broken home.

She drank alcohol at parties, she fell into the wrong crowd of those who didn't exactly discourage her from taking heroin and she caught her best friend and boyfriend getting high and making out in his bedroom.

The thought of ending her own life occurred to her more than once. She couldn't handle it anymore. Images of her druggie mother passed out on the couch and of her stepfather on top - and inside - of her haunted her every time she closed her eyes.

She even went as far as buying a gun on her eighteenth birthday, but as she stared down the barrel of the pistol, she decided she couldn't do it.

Lily wasn't exactly raised with God. She was never taught about a higher being in the sky, but she'd like to think that her biological father was somewhere watching over her.

He was so kind, caring, supportive, always helping her with her homework and taking her out to buy an ice cream sandwich any time she made him proud. Which was all the time. She wanted to see him again in a world where there was no pain, trauma nor any evil.

And that day was about to come sooner than expected.

Lily died, February twelfth at six nineteen in the evening, of an overdose. An accidental overdose.

That was how she ended up awakening on a couch in an empty room. It was all white; white walls, white floor and a white couch. Sun beams shone through the windows that were near the ceiling and there was an unfamiliar woman standing about twenty feet away next to a television screen.

A frightened squeal escaped from her lips when she noticed her there with her hands folded in front of her and a ghost of a smile. She thought that maybe she was dreaming. Or that maybe she was hallucinating as a side effect of the drugs, but she didn't think that she was that high. She certainly didn't know that she was dead.

Lily was still in the clothes she was wearing the last time she was alive: a tank top that was thin enough that her nipples were showing and matching pajama shorts with lilacs printed all over them. Being skeptical, she slowly stood up and took slow steps toward the woman.

"Am I dead?"

The woman, short, brunette and wearing a white pencil dress, hesitated before sighing. "I guess there's no point in beating around the bush. Yes. You're dead. Very much dead."

The last thing she remembered was sitting on her bed, feeling dizzy and drowsy after taking a shot of heroin. She must've taken a bigger dose than she intended. She took another glance around the room. No gardens, waterfalls nor angels were to be seen. Heaven was nothing like she pictured when she imagined reuniting with her dad. "Is this Heaven?"

The mystery woman, who Lily still didn't know the reason as to why she was there, inhaled and looked as though she was meticulously picking out her next words. "Well... no. But you will be going there soon. If you are up to the task required to get in, that is."

Lily furrowed her brows. A task? Millions of questions swirled around in her head. "How the hell was this happening?" was one of them. "What task?"

The woman turned on the TV and a video of a newborn baby appeared, crying a high-pitched cry while the nurses wrapped her up in a blanket and placed a beanie on her head to keep it warm.

It was the strangest thing. She looked a lot like Lily when she was a baby. Before her dad died, they had the picture perfect family. They gathered around a pile of old pictures every year for Lily's birthday and her mom would get sappy and nostalgic whenever they got to the pictures taken when her daughter was first born. The baby displayed on the screen could've been her twin.

"Who is that?" Lily stepped closer to get a better look.

"That's you."

Lily spun around so fast, she was in danger of getting whiplash. This lady officially lost her mind. "I have thousands of questions. Starting with what the hell are you talking about?"

"Well, that baby is you. Reincarnated."

Lily's scrunched-up face relaxed. She hadn't given much thought to reincarnation so she wasn't sure if she believed in it or not. It would've been cool though. To come back as a bird who could fly away from their troubles. Or even a dog. As long as a loving and warm family adopted her and gave her lots of belly rubs and attention.

"I heard about your mom. And your stepfather."

"I don't wanna talk about it." Lily immediately shut down the topic of conversation. Now that she was dead and in this in-between-Earth-and-Heaven limbo-type place, she didn't want to go back. Hell, both her mom and stepdad probably wouldn't bat an eyelash if they found out she died.

"I didn't think you would. But you didn't let me finish." She reached her hand out to land on Lily's shoulder. "If you could guide this baby girl to have a much better life than you did, would you?"

"Yeah, of course." She glanced at the baby again. The baby was so innocent, unaware of the evil that surrounded her. Druggies, thieves, traffickers, rapists, murderers. No one should take that innocence and rip it away from her like Lily's mom did to her. "Someone's gotta watch out for her."

"I'm glad you said that. Because that someone... is you. Because before you can go to Heaven, you have to do just that. Guide her to be happier. Basically, you'd be your own guardian angel."

"For how long?"

"At least until you feel like she doesn't need you anymore."

Lily didn't have to think about it. This was her one and only chance to go back and give herself - at least her reincarnated self - the life that she wished she had. She reached her hand out for the lady to shake. "Deal."