The first time Millie realized she was the cursed one out of her sisters, she was at her parents' funeral, standing next to her uncle, Drew. She hadn't meant to show him her hip; after spending a week in the hospital, she'd just thought it was a scar. But it'd been burning all day, and she'd hiked up her top to look at it and possibly scratch the crap out of it.

"Millie," Drew had said and grabbed her wrist as she reached for the scar. "What is that?"

"Scar." The then-younger and far more innocent Millie had raised one eyebrow. "Duh."

"No . . . oh God, no. Angel! Come here!"

At that exact moment, Millie hadn't understood it. It had been later, after her older sisters had crowded around to see the filigree shaped scar; it was after Drew sent a picture to all her still-alive family members, after she'd been poked and prodded at for almost an hour — after all that, she realized what this meant.

She remembered the same weird looking thing on her mom's wrist, and Millie remembered her mom's sad look when she'd asked, numerous times, what is this?

Millie was six the first time she realized she was going to die.

--- 

There were a lot of reasons that Millie should've been freaking out — Sam's hysterical blabbering, for one, her sisters for another, not to mention her uncle and the fact that there was a rather large shard of glass sticking out of her abdomen.

But there was only one reason for her insane, mind-reeling panic.

She was waist-deep in water.

She was thinking about her parents and her great aunt Mildred and she was thinking about Angel and her sisters and God, wouldn't it just be amazing, if she died less than five miles from her house, in the freaking lake? At the very least, you'd think the curse would take her in the ocean, like all the people before her. 

"Oh my God," Sam said, putting his hands to his face. "Oh holy shit, Millie, oh holy shit."

"Sam," Millie started.

"No, holy crap, Millie, my whole windshield is sticking out of your stomach."

Millie tried not to roll her eyes — and failed. "Sam, listen..."

"Oh God, what did I do? I fell asleep, didn't I? Millie, I am so sorry, I don't know what happened —"

"SAM!" Millie snapped.

He stopped. "What?"

"Could you please stop babbling for a second and listen to me?"

"Yes, sure, of course, yes." Sam nodded vigorously. "What is it?"

"I need you to move me."

Sam's face froze. "Move you...where?"

"Anywhere away from the water, please."

"Millie..." Sam frowned. "Look, I'm not a doctor. What if I hurt you?" He looked up, squinting through the now-dry air. "On like every medical show ever, they say not to move the body."

Sam kept talking, droning on and on about medical shows and CSI and something about a detective, but she couldn't listen any longer. Every moment, every night she spent under the water, trying to breathe, all came down to this very second. She was going to die in muddy, lake water because Sam fucking White couldn't grow the balls to save her or at the very least prolong her death.

"I'm cursed." Millie squeezed her eyes shut. "I'm fucking cursed, I swear. The universe hates me, God hates me, everyone hates me, and so this is it. This is the curse coming to take me, right, universe? This is the end of Millie Clearwater? This is what you've been leading up to, for eighteen years? Well, let me tell you. This is a huge let down. A lake? I swear, you could've done much better."

"Um, Millie?" Sam shifted his eyes nervously. "What are you talking about?"

Millie inhaled through her nose, pressing her lips together. She was trying not to freak out anymore than needed; surely, it would be bad for the giant slice to her stomach. But she wasn't worried about the cut — she could barely feel it, anyway, and she attributed that to shock. She was more worried about the water. If the curse was going to have her, it would have to do with water. A big, able-to-drown-in body of water. Millie would rather die from this giant stab wound than die because the curse was ugly enough to take her in a fucking lake.

Looking through the darkness, Millie watched Sam's face. "I need you to move me, Sam. I'm not asking. I'm not requesting. I'm telling you to pick me up and put me anywhere else but right here."

Sam looked shaky. Or maybe it was Millie's vision. It was beginning to be hard to tell if she was the one with blurry vision or if there were suddenly four Sams, all weaving around each other.

Without saying anything else — anything Millie could hear, anyway — Sam slid his arms gently under her back and her knees, pulling her against his chest. His knees were knocking, whether it was from exhaustion or the cold lake water or the fact that Millie was practically dead weight, and when he fell down into the mud a few feet away from the lake, Millie let out a pained yelp that made Sam's face starkly pale and extremely tight.

"I'm so sorry," he whispered, putting his forehead against hers. "I didn't mean to hurt you."

As he began to release her, putting her back on the ground, Millie fisted her hand in his shirt, and he paused. "Stop," she whispered, turning her head and pressing it against his neck. "Don't let go." She wasn't sure where the sudden urge came from to be close to him, but Millie couldn't deny her need for Sam to be as close as he could be. 

"Alright." He dipped his head into a nod. "I think I hear sirens. You're going to be okay."

Millie let her eyes flutter shut, listening to the steady thumping of Sam's pulse.

"Did you hear me?" He murmured, his lips to her cheek. "You're going to be okay."

Then the darkness was coming, and Millie couldn't stay awake long enough to even tell Sam that she knew she'd be okay, because he was there.

---

The hospital, Millie thought, smelled like Lysol.

When she opened her eyes, blinking to get rid of the mush in the corners, she saw blank white walls and smelled chemicals. Nauseating, she decided. She'd never be able to work someplace like this.

"Oh, great, you're awake. Now I can finally yell at you. Believe me, it's been hard holding back."

Millie rolled her head to look at Angel, who was standing beside the bed. Her hair was up in an uncharacteristically messy ponytail, and there were deep circles under her eyes, and somehow, she still managed to look a whole lot more put together than Millie did, even on a good day.

"Where's everyone?"

"Drew took the girls to get some food. They were getting sick of the cafeteria here."

Millie sighed. "I haven't been out long enough for them to be getting sick. You just want them back on their all-organic diet."

"Damn straight," Angel snapped. "I have to take care of someone, don't I? Since you obviously aren't ever going to let me help you."

"You're irritating. I just woke up from major surgery, Angel. I don't really want to talk about this right now."

"Oh, you don't?" Angel laughed humorlessly. "Millie, there is a boy sitting in that waiting room right now, terrified that he killed you. Also, his mom wants to know if we're going to sue them, because God knows that's what we're worried about right now. Money." Her sister said the last word like it personally offended her.

"Um." Millie squinted. "This is kind of a lot to take in. Could we reconvene at a later time, when I feel up to it? Like...three thousand years from never?"

"You're crazy. You're actually, certifiably crazy. Is this my fault? Did I not slap enough sense into you?"

"Angel, you need to chill. This wasn't the curse."

"No, this was the curse, you idiot. This is just the beginning. You know that. A series of accidents — all leading up to the biggest thing ever."

"What, Armageddon?"

"That is not funny, at all."

Millie sighed. "Angel, I'm barely eighteeen. I'm not in love. The curse can't touch me yet. I have, like, twenty years or something."

"Age doesn't matter if you love someone."

"Who do I love? No one, if I recall."

"Thanks, love you, too, Mills." Angel looked away, her jaw clenched.

"That's not what I meant and you know it. Sam is just a guy, Angel. Maybe he's adorable and funny, but he's just a guy. I hate to break it to you, but I'm not in love with him."

"Then what the hell do you think happened?  Do you think I didn't check your scar the second we were alone?"

Millie hesitated. "Let me see."

Angel pulled her phone out of the pocket of her hoodie, pulled down Millie's thin, hospital-given blanket, and snapped a hasty picture before tossing the phone on Millie's chest.

Millie's hands were shaking as she held the phone up to her face.

Her previously tiny filigree scar had morphed into something different; something larger that now covered her entire hip bone.

"Oh my God," she breathed, putting her fingers to her lips. 

Angel was right.

Millie looked up, eyes wide. "This doesn't make any sense. I'm not kidding, Angel. I don't love him."

Angel's face was frozen in a mixture of fear and anger. "What is this, then?"

If Millie didn't love Sam, it had to mean something. It had to mean that whatever she'd thought the curse was before, she was wrong...because she knew, without a doubt, she didn't love him. Maybe she had feelings for him, strong ones that had caused her to get into his car last night, ones that had made her happy, but she knew she didn't love him, not in the way Angel was implying she did. 

Millie didn't have the heart to tell Angel that she was positive the curse was different for her. That maybe things weren't as clear as they had thought they were. So, she turned her head and pretended not to notice the lights reflecting off her sister's shiny eyes.  

 "I don't know." Millie looked back at the picture. "But I think this is just the beginning."

The beginning of Millie's death.