My hands were clenching so hard that I tore a nail. A keen stab of pain ran up my finger, but I barely noticed it. My body was on high alert, my heart thumping rapidly. Every fibre of me was ready to step in the moment something happened.
But… nothing did. I could see his lips move, but I couldn’t hear what he said. Paulina leant quietly against his chest until he pulled away. Again he pressed a kiss to her cheek and pushed her back. ‘Will you do that for me?’ he asked mildly. She nodded, much more weakly now, but didn’t move. Jack raised his eyebrows and shooed her with his hands. ‘All right then, go.’
Paulina wavered briefly, then nodded again and turned around. Her body stumbled over the first few steps, but then she pulled herself up and walked slowly away. Out of the courtyard, towards the main college gates.
Jack watched her go, brow furrowed. ‘Do you think it worked?’
‘Guess we’ll find out tomorrow morning.’ Victor grinned and clapped him on the shoulder, but instantly jerked back. ‘Holy shit.’ He flapped his hand, laughing, as if he’d burnt himself. ‘Come on, let’s get out of here, make sure we go somewhere people can see us. Just to be on the safe side.’
I waited until the two of them were out of sight before following in the direction Paulina had gone. Part of me wanted to shadow Victor and Jack, try to hear more, but I sensed Paulina was more important. Whatever had passed between her and Jack, it seemed like she was under some sort of… influence. I couldn’t let her be alone in that state.
Every step I took without finding her made me more nervous. It wasn’t until I walked through a covered passageway and emerged not far from one of the bridges that I spotted a figure some distance ahead of me, standing by the balustrade. The blonde hair fluttering in the wind was unmistakeably Paulina’s. I breathed a sigh of relief and set off in her direction, until suddenly I went rigid.
She wasn’t standing by the balustrade–she was standing on it. For a moment, the sight of it crossed wires with a memory: that night on the bridge, weeks ago, when Victor got up onto the balustrade and said,People like us don’t have bad luck.
Even at the time, it had struck me he was right. People like himbroughtbad luck instead. The sight of Paulina now felt like confirmation.
My heart was beating in my throat as I moved warily towards her. Gravel crunched under my shoes, but Paulina didn’t turn around. Her eyes were fixed on the water flowing some yards below us: black, flecked with silver light reflected from the stars and the lampposts dotted few and far between along the riverside. By the time she noticed me, I was barely three steps distant. Her eyes were narrow, somehow vacant, as if she was looking straight through me.
‘Hey,’ I said cautiously, holding up my hands. Trying to stay calm, although what I really wanted to do was lunge and grab her. ‘You’re Paulina, right? I’m Mabel.’ Putting my hand on the balustrade, I took a step towards her, but she flinched. Instantly, I froze, forcing a smile to my lips. ‘Paulina, maybe you could come down here, eh?’
She stared at me blankly. Her fingers had curled again around the hem of her jacket, but I saw now they had a bluish sheen. Like her face. I didn’t have to touch her to know how profoundly cold she was.
‘I can’t.’ She looked down. ‘I have to.’
‘You don’thaveto. Listen to me. Whatever they did or said, we’ll figure it out. You’re not alone, okay? I’ll help you.’
Her eyes sank again to the jet-black face of the Cam. The more she stared, the more its darkness carved itself into her face. ‘I’m so tired.’
I’d never felt so overwhelmed in all my life. Countless options raced through my head, but all of them felt like mistakes. I wanted to reason with her, to call the police, to dart forward and try to drag her back. I wanted to do something, but I didn’t know what. Not what was wrong with her, not what Jack had said, not how to stop her from jumping. I just knew I had totry. Because I absolutely could not let this happen. The bridge wasn’t all that high and the Cam wasn’t all that deep, but it was late November, it was the middle of the night, and Paulina was obviously in bad shape.
I took another step towards her, arm outstretched. ‘Give me your hand, okay?’
She shuffled away from me, her shoes grinding on the balustrade, her body swaying. Her eyes wouldn’t quite meet mine, glassy and empty. ‘I have to go.’
Before I could so much as think a single word, it happened. Paulina was still looking in my direction when she took a step forward.
She didn’t scream, and nor did I. There was only the wind wrenching at my hair, my heart skipping two beats, and then the sound of water parting.
I stood at the balustrade as the surface levelled and grew sleek again. A slight ripple, an indignant glint. Nothing more. With every second that I couldn’t see Paulina, my stomach knotted more tightly. I had to do something–right now. It would take me minutes to climb down to the bank, and much longer for an ambulance to arrive. Time I was pretty sure she didn’t have.
I was still staring at the river. The water was dark, opaque, and I knew it would be freezing cold. Just looking at it took the breath from my lungs. Paulina was wrong: she didn’t have to do this. But I did. If I didn’t act, no one would. If the worst came tothe worst, she would drown. And as much as I didn’t want to jump, I was even more reluctant to watch her die.
Tearing my bag and coat resolutely off my shoulders, I kicked off my shoes and pulled my heavy woollen jumper over my head. I tossed everything onto the ground then climbed up onto the balustrade. My body was shaking, gooseflesh rising on my bare arms. My breath danced hazily before my face, and my vision swam as I looked down. I felt a surge of dizziness, which I forced back down with all the strength I had.
Don’t think, just act.
I unclamped my fingers from the balustrade and stood up. The stone bored through my socks, and I gasped as the wind tore at my ankles.
Don’t think, just act.
Gritting my teeth, I took a tiny step towards the edge. My pulse was hammering in my ears, and I heard the rushing of my blood but nothing else. Except, very faintly, I thought I heard someone calling my name–but it was too late for that. Pushing hesitation aside, I took a deep breath and jumped off from the bridge with all my might. Leaping into nothingness.
The water was concrete. Or so it felt, when my body hit the surface. A hot, stabbing pain shot through my body as the icy water surged around me. For a brief moment, everything was gone: my breath froze, my heart stopped, my mind crumbled away. I was nothing but this throbbing, all-consuming pain, which took me in its terrible hand and squeezed. I was sinking into the black–into the Cam and into my own inner darkness. I was seven again, reliving everything: the powerlessness, the helplessness, the realisation that life’s worst cruelties could be neither controlled nor prevented. I was defenceless, and the thought almost made me pass out.
Three… four seconds it lasted, then my head broke the surface and I came to my senses. I coughed, spat, gasped. Perhaps I screamed. It barely registered, because all I could think about, all that mattered, was Paulina.
I shoved the hair roughly back from my face, keeping myself above water with the other hand. The Cam wasn’t deep, but I couldn’t touch the bottom, and swimming had never been my strong suit. I whipped around frantically. The banks blurred into a veil of different greys. Lone daubs of light and shadow, lanterns and willow trees. Nothing else. The water itself spread before me like a black cloth, pressing itself over my eyes as it closed again and again over my head. The muscles in my arm were weak, the cold a relentless gnawing presence. I shivered, coughed, called Paulina’s name. My cry was barely more than a croak, trickling away immediately into the depths around me. I swam desperately, my eyes searching for her body.
