This Is a Lie

Chapter 1

Near the end …

THE GIRL’S HAIR is plastered to her skull. Her jeans and hoodie are soaked through and untied black Converse sneakers balance on a slick railing. One hand hovers in the cold air. The other is wrapped around a light post.

A hundred feet below, cars race by, oblivious to the teen perched above and ready to take flight. My headlights slice through the rain, but she doesn’t register the beams, or my driver’s door as it rasps open.

I whisper, “Please.” More loudly, “Please, don’t jump.”

She glances over her shoulder. “You can’t understand.”

I know when she lost her first tooth, advanced from crawling to walking, learned to ride a bike … “I do.”

Cautiously, I take a step forward. Her left hand releases the steel post. She sways, then steadies, but the storm’s wind kicks up and her back arches, arms flutter … like wings? One of her sneakers slips, and she grabs the post, rights herself, a single breath from oblivion.

There’s a taste to terror—bitter, salty, metallic. “Let me tell you a story.”

“Don’t come any closer,” she warns.

I hold up my hands, like I’m the victim and she’s the one with the gun. But that’s not true. I don’t have a gun, would never shoot anyone, but what I’ve done is far worse. “I promise I won’t. But will you listen?”

“Why should I?” she demands.

“Because this is my fault. Let me tell you why. Then you can decide what to do next.”

She shifts on the top rail. Her knees tremble. Breath catches in my throat …

“If I listen, you won’t try to stop me?”

She used to love tea parties, sleepovers, and every dog she met … I wedge my hands in my jacket pockets to prove I’m no threat. Another lie. “I won’t, if you listen to the whole story.” But if you jump, I will, too.

“Tell me.”

“It all began when the phone rang. The caller ID said Potential Spam …”