With a sigh, I stood up from the ground and looked around the park. It was empty. Soulless, even though it was no less beautiful. I couldn’t go home, at least not until Jude was asleep. I wasn’t sure when that would be exactly, since I hadn’t had time to grab my phone. I plucked two more daisies from the ground and stood, swaying on my feet for a moment as my head tried to catch up to the motion. Once I was steady, I began to walk.
I didn’t know where I was going. The temperature had dipped since nightfall. The pavement was cold beneath my feet now, sending chills through me every so often. I walked,directionless, in a town I hardly knew. It was smaller than I was used to. Growing up in the city, I never imagined I’d end up somewhere so quaint and quiet. I loved the quiet. Made it easier to hear the life around me, which reminded me that no matter how much I felt like I was, I wasn’t ever truly alone.
My feet guided me to a small bridge. The water below looked so beautiful, so peaceful and bright. I could see the flashes of stars along its surface, speaking to me in Morse code.“Down here,”they said.“We’re down here.”
The metal lining the bridge’s side was shockingly cold against my empty palm. I hissed, pulling air between my teeth. It’d been so warm a while ago, I didn’t understand where the chill had come from. Was it me? Had I caused it? Misfortune seemed to always follow me, turning everything I touched into nothing but dust and despair.
Placing both hands on the guardrail, I watched as the clouds slowly shifted over the moon. My light was suddenly gone, leaving me with nothing but the water and the daisies in my palm. I looked down at them, noticing one of the petals had gone missing. Frowning, I looked over the edge again, only to see it floating through the wind, cascading down toward the depths of the lake. I kind of wanted to follow it. Maybe be closer to it. Just a little bit.
It took some maneuvering, but I hoisted myself onto the guardrail. The petal had disappeared from my view by the time I got there, its white innocence swallowed by the black of night. I leaned my head back, closing my eyes and facing the sky. There was nothing behind my eyelids. Not a single glimmer of hope, or an idea of the future. I hadn’t had either of those in a while. A long while.
White between my fingertips, smooth and complete. I plucked the daisies and watched them fall, drifting toward the water below. My feet swung against the metal guardrail,clanging every so often. It was quiet. Peacefully fucking quiet.
Grasping the rail beside me with both hands, I experimentally leaned forward. Awhooshcurdled my stomach, forcing me backward just as quickly. “Holy fuck,” I whispered to no one and nothing.
Funny how my body knew the difference between danger and curiosity, yet I had no warning signs when it came to Jude. Just another failure to add to my growing list.
But the water looked so beautiful, and I started to wonder if the life living in it was lonely. I wondered if I could bring them any company. Give them something to look forward to every day. If there were fish, I’d never hurt them. I’d feed them and love them. I’d care for them as if they were mine.
I leaned forward again, testing my boundaries and limits. If I fell, I wasn’t a strong enough swimmer to get out. But I’d be free. How long had it been since I’d tasted freedom?
Too long. Probably since I was a teenager, back in high school, miserable and wishing for something better. The longer I peered over the water, the easier it seemed to just… let go. Take my hands off the rail. Would I fly? Maybe I was a bird, or an angel, and I just didn’t know it yet. Maybe wings would sprout from between my shoulder blades and carry me in the wind like the daisy petals.
I closed my eyes, wrenching the metal rail in my grip. It groaned beneath my weight, begging and pleading in its own language. I understood it anyway, having heard it hundreds of times before. Leaning my body forward, I took a deep breath and held it. It burned in my chest.
I let go.
And then there were arms around my middle.
And someone was screaming.
“Wait! No!”
I knew that voice. I opened my eyes just as the breath in my lungs was slammed out of me. When I looked at the water, I noticed tiny, perfect white flecks in the water. The daisy petals.
My back slammed into the voice behind me, his chest solid as we collided and crashed to the ground. He didn’t let go. “Please don’t. Please, please, please,”
I squirmed in his hold, twisting my neck to try to look over my shoulder. That’s when I froze, and so did he, because Crescent fucking Miller had just pulled me from a bridge. His mouth hung open, and a dark beard covered his chin and jaw. The gorgeous honey-brown eyes I’d always found safe as a teen stared straight at me, watery and sad. So, so sad.
“Elio?” He said my name like it would hurt him. As if it physically burned his tongue to sound out the syllables.
My chest rose and fell quickly, my breaths heaving in and out as I stayed silent against him. It was him. It was really him. The goofy, unique Crescent with a family of free-spirited people who’d loved me like their own for so many years. The little bit of light from the stars cast shadows over his face, caressing the lines I’d regretfully traced in my dreams a million times before.
Adolescence had changed him, but despite everything, he was still him. “Crescent, what are you doing here?” My voice sounded weaker than I’d expected, weighed down by the awe of seeing him.
He blinked a few times, each one slower than the last. “Me? I don’t really matter right now. You just tried to jump.”
The reality of the situation hit me, and how it must have looked to an outsider. It pounded through me, along with the wound at the back of my head. They came in tandem,tightening my chest and making my skin feel tighter than it did before. I shook my head, scrambling away from his hold. “I didn’t try to jump.”
“Uh, kinda looks like you did. Or else I wouldn’t have grabbed you like that.”
We were sitting on the road, now, only a few feet apart, his car’s hazard lights glowing just a little further down the road. “You made a mistake. I was just admiring the lake.”
“At eleven at night? With your entire upper half leaning over? Sure fucking looked like you were going to.”
Eleven?Christ, I’d been gone longer than I thought. He looked me up and down. “You look like shit, too.”
“Oh, thanks. Right back at you.” I rolled my eyes and went to sit up. “I wasn’t gonna jump, dude. You never answered my question, either.”
