I’d chosen that oblivion over my friends, my family, college.
I scooted to the end of the platform, dangling my feet over the ledge. One of my shoes, cheap flip-flops from a gas station, slipped off my foot. I leaned over the railing to watch as it flitted down to the ground, gaining enough momentum to send a small poof of dirt billowing into the air when it smacked against the earth.
A crazed laugh that sounded nothing like me burst from my mouth, echoing across the tops of the pines lining the dirt road beside the tower. I kicked off my other shoe and watched in wonderment as it followed the path of its mate, landing only inches away in another poof of dirt and dust.
I wondered what it felt like. To fly. To be a bird above it all. Maybe it would end just like my shoes…poof.
I stood up too quickly, falling back down onto my boney ass. My knees wobbled and gave out. I tried again, this time much slower. Holding on to the railing, I focused my gaze down on my shoes as I lifted one bare foot onto the bottom rung of the rail. The sharp metal cut into the flesh in the crease of my toes. My entire body began to shake more violently than before, almost as if I was having a seizure. It wasn’t just because I was needing a fix. It was my entire being recognizing and realizing what I was about to do.
This was it.
Bending at the waist, I raised my other foot and was met with the same cut of flesh. I shifted my hands to the top rung and slowly straightened my knees until I was standing upright, the only thing keeping me from falling over the side was the thin guard bar pressed against the middle of my thighs which bent against my weight.
With my hands at my sides, I used my fingers to slowly pull up the hem of my t-shirt until I had enough of the material in my hands to lift it up over my head. Raising it into the night sky I released my clenched fist and watched as the breeze picked it up and carried it into the pines, and I was glad to see it go. I gave a quick press of my lips to the silver cross Mirna had given me for my first communion and let it fall back between my breasts. I carefully removed my shorts and underwear, lifting one foot at a time until I was standing bared to the world.
Clean.
It was the beginning of the end.
A baptism into death.
I stretched my arms out wide, embracing the night.
I was ready to fly.
On the count of three.
One.
Two.
Three.
*
I don’t want to do this.
But it was too late. It wasn’t as if I could jump back and change my mind. I was already falling.
Until I wasn’t.
I was ripped back from the very edge of death by strong arms and for a naive second, I thought it might have been God himself who’d heard my last second change of heart and saved my life. A life I’d so stupidly chose to throw away in a moment of delusion and weakness.
What the fuck is wrong with me? What am I doing here? I thought, coming back to my senses as my body was thrown sideways, elbows, shoulders, and knees crashed against metal, railing, wall, and finally flesh. My spine arched off the platform like a fallen cat as my tailbone landed unceremoniously with a sickening crunch that made my eyes water.
I was pushed onto my back. Powerful thighs straddled me, and again I was stupid enough to think that maybe I was being protected. That thought was short lived when my wrists were jerked above my head and held at an awkward angle that made my arms throb. After a few excruciating moments, the pain in the base of my spine dulled to an ache and I was able to open my eyes to the blurry world around me.
I blinked rapidly. When my vision cleared I found myself staring up into the dark amber-colored eyes of a man who most certainly wasn’t God.
He was older than me, but only by a few years at most. I’d never seen anyone like him. One side of his neck was covered in colorful and intricate tattoos that disappeared into the collar of his yellow button-down shirt. When he adjusted my wrists, his sleeves rode up his forearms, revealing very little unmarked skin there as well. His sandy-blond hair was shaved short on the sides, longer and slicked back on top. His beard was neat, short, and several shades darker than the hair on his head.
For a brief moment I was relieved that whoever the man was, at least he wasn’t Conner or Eric.
However, that relief soon gave way to unadulterated panic.
I didn’t recognize him. Not at first, anyway. Not until he smiled and my gaze traveled from his full lips and straight white teeth, down to his pink and yellow polka-dotted bow tie. Then the recognition slammed into me like a freight train.
Oh fuck.
This man was my savior.
He was also anything but.
“I see you remember me. Well, at least now it all makes a fuck of a lot more sense,” he said, his voice a deep rumble that I felt in my chest as he leaned down over me, his lips a breath away from mine. I tried to struggle, to free myself of his grip, but he only chuckled and held me tighter. He was right by laughing because my fighting back was exactly that. Laughable. I was weak.
Too weak.
“What exactly makes sense now?” I managed to bite out, blowing out a breath of frustration at my lack of ability to fight him off.
“It’s a common knowledge around here that anyone who steals from me or my partner has got to be either dumb-as-fuck or suicidal,” he said, leaning back onto his knees. Still holding my wrists with one hand, he gestured with the other to the ledge I’d stood on seconds earlier. “The truth is that when I followed you up here I had my money on dumb-as-fuck, but hey, you surprised me by trying to take the final leap over there, I didn’t expect that. Almost didn’t catch you in time.” He then leaned back down and had the audacity to pinch my cheek, the way a crazy aunt would.
“So what? You only saved me from killing myself so you could have the honor?”
“Maybe,” he admitted, adding, “You should be proud of yourself, kid, ’cause nothing much surprises me these days. In a way,” he paused and looked around into the night sky, taking a deep breath through his nose, releasing it with an audible sigh out of his mouth, like he was sitting in an open field, relaxing and literally smelling the flowers. “It’s kind of refreshing. I hope those other two stupid fucks surprise me like you have, but I doubt it.” He looked back down at me and winked. “My money is staying on dumb-as-fuck when it comes to those two.”
“What did you do to Mirna?” I asked, my words as shaky as the rest of my body.
“Is that a new thing? Is that what the kids are all doing these days? Ripping people off, then pretending like they give two fucks what happens to them?”
“Please. Tell me. Is she okay?”
He chuckled, like the panic in my voice was amusing to him. He leaned down, his cheek firmly against mine. “I’m. Not. Telling. You. Shit,” he said, squeezing my body hard between his thighs, as if to prove to me that it was all it would take to crush me.