I drowned on August fifteenth of the year 2006.

The sun glinted off of the pellucid water; it created a web of turquoise and white around me, struck me dumb with its brilliance. A cloud of fine ivory sand followed my wake whenever I moved. I was sure this had to be Paradise: my nondescript home in Essex felt so far away.

It truly was. This had been my graduation gift – a magical trip of forgetting to the islands of Indonesia, which I had heard of so much as a child. I had fallen in love with the wild colors and the violently blue sea, inundated with passion for its mysteries.

According to my parents, I was both academically and emotionally inept. This would be the last thing to do before ridding themselves of my presence.

They never considered that their obedient, vicious little Pat would have the courage to strangle the life out of the sister that sat with her when her demons would rip off the mask and crawl to the surface.

She was too good for that and I was stupid enough to drown on my own.