Chapter 2 #2
Suddenly, the guy spins—like, actually kicks one foot out and fucking turns on the ball of the other.
My heart lurches, certain he's going to fall over the edge to his death.
But instead, his raised foot lands squarely back on the ledge, leaving him facing the roof now instead of the abyss.
He steps down, plucking the cigarette from his shadowed mouth and exhaling slowly.
“What if instead of why don’t,” he murmurs. “We say why do.”
I frown. “What?”
“Why are you going to jump.”
I notice that he doesn’t say “why were you going to jump”.
“I…” I look down, thankful for the shadows masking my face as I take a deep breath. “Because I’m tired,” I say quietly. “I’m just so fucking tired.”
“That's what naps are for.”
My mouth purses, even though he can’t see it in the dark.
“That’s a joke,” he adds.
I peer at him. “Is now the time for jokes?”
“Hey, if not now…”
A soft smile tugs at the corners of my mouth. “Touché.”
“Why else.”
I curl my toes against the rough, slightly gravelly material of the roof. “I don’t know… I don’t fit in.”
He barks a cold laugh. “Yeah, well, welcome to the world.”
I scowl at him. “Okay, asshole. How about you tell me why you want—”
“Because I’m clinically depressed, sometimes I hate myself and what I am, and I think permanent silence would be much fucking nicer than the constant screaming in my head.”
I blink, stunned by his brutal sincerity.
“Your turn,” he says, taking a drag of his cigarette.
I blink, trying to collect my thoughts. “I mean…” My mouth opens and shuts a few times and I lift my shoulders. “Same, I guess.”
He shakes his head. “Can’t steal mine. That’s fucking cheating.”
“I’m not,” I toss back. “It's just…yours was really good. That’s exactly how I feel. I’ve just…” I shrug. “I’ve never been able to put it like that.”
He doesn’t say anything for a few seconds, but I see him nod a little. “And there’s nothing you'd miss?” the honeyed low voice rumbles.
I cock my head. “Is this you trying to talk me out of it?”
He shakes his head. “Just crossing the Ts, dotting the Is.”
My eyes focus on the cigarette dangling from his shadow-cloaked lips. “Can I have one of those?”
I don’t smoke. Not really. I mean, everyone smokes in rehab, but that doesn’t count.
“Sure.”
He tosses me the pack, then the lighter. I pull one out, slip it between my lips, and then flick the lighter with my thumb, touching the flame to the tip as I inhale.
…And immediately cough. Violently.
He chuckles as I wheeze, and then do a shitty job of throwing the lighter and pack at his feet.
“You don’t smoke.” He bends down to retrieve what I unceremoniously threw at him.
I manage to get control of my respiratory system and shrug as I take another puff. “Hey, if not now…”
He laughs quietly. “Take that, Big Tobacco.”
We smoke in silence for a minute, fifteen or so feet away from each other.
“Got any family?” he finally asks.
I nod. “A dad. A sister.” My brow furrows. “A stepmom, but she doesn’t count.”
He snorts. “Because she’s a stepmom, or because she sucks?”
“The latter,” I groan. “Nothing against stepmoms in general, but she’s Disney-villain level bad.”
He nods. “That's shitty. Your mom dead?”
My nose wrinkles. “That’s….”
“What, private?” He gestured broadly with his arms. “Think we’re a little past keeping secrets from each other, don’t you?”
I smirk. “Yeah, she is,” I say. “Dead, I mean. How about you? Any family—”
“Just my dad.”
I tip my head. “You won’t miss him?”
“I’ll miss him a lot, actually,” he rumbles.
“So why—”
“Will you miss any of your family?”
I shake my head. “Not really. My sister, maybe.”
“Friends?”
I look down, thinking of the friends I’ve made at the Zakharova Ballet where I dance since getting back to New York.
“Yeah,” I mumble. “I’ll miss them.”
He exhales a plume of smoke. “And yet you’re still up here.”
“Yeah,” I nod.
“So, guess we understand each other, huh?” he says gently.
My mouth twists. “Yup. Guess so.”
He takes a last drag of his smoke, then drops it to the ground and stamps it out. His darkened face raises to mine.
“You want to do this together?” He shrugs. “Can you imagine how fucking dumb the tabloids will look, making up crazy stories about us? Forget jumping together for company, they’ll say it was some sort of twisted romantic thing.”
A twinge ripples through me as I find myself nodding, smiling grimly.
“Yeah,” I mumble. “Yeah, let’s go together.”
I drop the cigarette to the roof to stamp it out and then remember I don’t have shoes on, so I just leave it.
“Well, time's a-wasting,” he grunts, turning toward the edge.
“Wait,” I blurt, a lump forming in my throat. “I…I don’t know your name.”
“Does it matter?”
I frown, shaking my head. “I guess not.”
We go to the edge, twenty feet apart.
I look down. It’s a long way down.
What happens if I change my mind?
Then I clench my teeth tightly and think of Lark.
I’m doing this.
I’m so…tired. Of the demons. The guilt. The gnaw of addiction.
Of feeling like I’m insane, all the fucking time.
He steps up onto the ledge.
So do I.
I look at him, and smile a little when he glances at me, both our faces still shadowed.
Me and my anonymous partner-in-suicide.
He’s not wrong. When they find us, they’ll probably go crazy trying to figure out how we know each other. If we were in love, and this was some insane Romeo and Juliet thing. Idiot podcasters will yap about us. Politicians will weigh in, as politicians always do.
I smile to myself.
Maybe this’ll actually make things better for someone else. Maybe some good will come out of this, like more attention to mental health, or—
“You wanna count back from three?”
I nod.
I’m strangely calm.
At peace.
…and terrifyingly ready for this.
“Three.”
I close my eyes.
See you soon, Lark. I mean, maybe. I know neither of us believed in that shit.
“Two.”
I raise my arms to the sides, for no other reason than it feels dramatic and that's what Odette does at the end of Swan Lake right before she jumps.
Then I hear the crunch of boots behind me.
“Nah, fuck this. Hang on—”
I whirl at the sound of his voice right behind me, not twenty feet away like he was two seconds ago. As I do, one bare foot catches the ankle of my other leg.
Suddenly, I tip back, gravity wrapping its claws around me and yanking me over the edge.
A tattooed arm shoots out. A veiny, inked hand grabs a fistful of my hoodie, holding me fast as the breath rushes out of my lungs and my heart slams up into my throat.
I gasp sharply as my hands wrap like iron around his wrist and forearm, my entire body hanging at a forty-five-degree angle over dead space that drops eighty-fucking-three stories to the ground.
I am no longer strangely calm.
I’m just fucking terrified.
“Pull me up—!”
But even as the words erupt from my mouth, my eyes lift to his.
And everything goes cold.
A numb, ringing sensation whines in my ears, louder and louder.
Neither of our faces is bathed in shadows anymore. And suddenly, the man keeping me from falling to my death isn’t a stranger anymore.
His name is Bane Antonov.
He loved my dead best friend Lark.
The friend that I got killed.
And right now, he looks like he might just let me plunge to my death after all.