AN: Sometimes words just start playing in my mind. That happened today and this was the result. Hope you enjoy it and please let me know what you think since it's kind of different from what I usually write. Also, I'm thinking about continuing it if anyone is interested, so let me know!

Recollection

She remembers everything about that day.

She remembers waking up early. An annoying habit she'd developed over the last semester due to 8:00 AM classes across campus. She remembers happily realizing she was still on break from school and didn't have to get out of bed right away. Remembers feeling the slight chill through the apartment, deliciously cozy, as she sank down into the pillows and buried her nose back under the covers for five more minutes.

She remembers the scent of coffee, warm and fragrant, floating down the hallway as her parents had breakfast together at the kitchen table. Can still envision the scene that she'd witnessed thousands of other mornings before she ever moved across the country for college. Her father in his glasses, reading the paper, as he sipped from his mug. Her mother wrapping her arms around him, planting a kiss on his cheek before leaving early for work.

She remembers picturing that scene in her mind while she sat eating her bowl of cereal an hour later. The smile that spread across her face as she caught the aroma of her mother's perfume still just barely lingering in the kitchen. A fragrance that even to this day carries her back to the feeling of being enveloped her mother's arms, on the occasion that she passes by another woman wearing the same brand. Someone else's mother or daughter. Perhaps both. She always wonders.

She remembers walking through her parents' study to pick up a book. Finally free from homework and finals to read whatever she wanted. Remembers skimming over titles on the bookshelf, tracing her fingertips along their spines until she found what she was looking for.

She remembers the book she chose to read that day. Tolstoy. She felt so sophisticated then. So confident in her choice to study pre-law and literature. She remembers how she always made fun of her mom for reading Patterson and Castle. How she scoffed at the murder mysteries because she thought Russian lit would make her far more cultured. She dreamed of studying abroad, discovering the pages alive and in person.

She remembers going for a run in the park that afternoon. Enjoying the cold burn in her lungs as she slowed to a jog and checked her watch to make sure she had enough time to shower before dinner with her parents.

She remembers laughing on the phone with a friend from school, as she got ready. Remembers making plans for the following week when they were supposed to head back to Stanford. Talking about their classes and boys and parties.

She remembers putting on her makeup, carefree and unhurried. Remembers hearing the sound of her father's footsteps down the hall as she finished the last stroke of mascara across her eyelashes.

Remembers their wait at the restaurant, her father teasing her about the boy in her photo album from school and asking about classes. Remembers talking about the cases she'd read in Intro to Business Law and the proud look in her dad's eyes. The way his eyes shone whenever she became animated about her interests.

She remembers feeling just on the brink of everything. Ready to dive in and discover what the world held for her. The feeling that she was finally growing up, making her own choices but there was always that safety net of home to fall back upon. She remembers what it was like to be full of such hope and love and life.

But most of all she remembers the moment it all slipped away. The moment when it all lost meaning. When everything fell apart, leaving her empty and broken.

They hadn't even suspected. Hadn't even worried. Hadn't even said goodbye.

Stabbed four times, he'd said. Random gang violence. And she was just gone.

She remembers the look on the detective's face as he explained. The mixture of sympathy and silent apology in his eyes that she couldn't really understand at the time.

She remembers tasting the salt in her tears, a steady stream down her cheeks as they lowered her mother's casket into the ground. Remembers the crushing grip of her father's hand over hers. Remembers feeling as though she'd died in that moment, right alongside her mom. How badly she wished she could sink into the night and never come up for air again.

She remembers their trip to Coney Island. How she struggled to find light in the darkness. The possibility of joy in those days seemed so impossible. How father and her tried to fight the overwhelming sadness.

She remembers when the tears stopped. How she felt nothing for so long. Just a lost and broken shell of everything she'd been before. It'd have been easier if she could cry. She'd longed for a release that refused to come. There were no tears, no feelings. There was only a hollow weight in her chest that suffocated her more and more each day.

She remembers making the decision to move home. Her dreams had been crushed under the heaviness of her grief and of her responsibility to her father. There would be no first female chief justice in her future. Her heart wasn't in it anymore. Sometimes she wondered if it would ever be in anything again.

She remembers those nights she'd lie awake at home, as her father drowned himself in a bottle of Jack in their living room. Remembers struggling to get him out of his chair after he'd pass out. Practically having to carry him down the hall to the bed, forever cold on the side where her mother used to sleep.

She remembers exactly when the tears came back. Remembers sitting on the floor of her shower shaking from sobs, as the water turned from a hot sting to an icy bite at her skin. Remembers pulling herself up from the cold porcelain, shutting off the water, and steeling her features again to face another day.

She remembers that the pain never really subsided as time passed. Instead, she learned to perfect the mask she wore. Learned to compartmentalize the grief. Remembers building the wall around her heart, sturdy and incapable of being scaled. Remembers making a silent promise to herself that she'd never let anyone close enough to suffer another devastating loss.

She remembers what it was like to love. But in her memories it became inseparable from a pain too unbearable to face again. Not when she still faced it every day.

She remembers graduating college in New York. Remembers smiling over the ache inside at her mother's absence from the ceremony. She remembers realizing that day, even amidst her success, that every happy moment, every prospect of joy was now laced with the knowledge that she'd never again be able to share those moments with her mom.

She remembers the day she first laced her mother's ring on the chain and placed it around her neck. The day she decided to wear it for the life she'd lost.

It was the day she first walked through the doors of the New York Police Department.

"I'd like to apply to be an officer," she'd said, voice heavy with determination.

She'll always remember the day she allowed herself to find a small sliver of hope. The day she began her fight for justice.

She remembers because she can't forget.

Thoughts?