Chapter Text
What do you think goes through a person's mind as they stand one foot away from an ocean of swimming streetlights beneath a thirty-story drop? Are they thinking of the life they lived? The people they loved? The mistakes they made? The regrets they tried to bury once upon a time, but now are cascading back down on them?
Maybe they're thinking that if they do go through with this and leap to their death, that will be one more regret left buried and unable to be quenched.
I remember what I was thinking, all right: I was wondering when my next break would be—not on the clock at work—at life. When, just when, would everything stop repeatedly falling apart and manifesting again to mock me, laugh in my face a while, and watch me crumble?
It was kind of funny, actually. The way I stood at the edge of the apartment building rooftop, gazing out over the streets draped in fluorescent manmade lights, the sound of cars guzzling gas faintly audible even at that height. Funny, and kind of soothing. I had a drink in my hand, Fruit Splash Ginger Ale, and I thought—well—once this tasty drink is gone, I'll have nothing left to stall for time, it's off to hell for me.
But I never did get the chance to step forward. I had washed the back of my throat with the last swig of pop, set the can down, and took one last look across the city and its sparkly lights, ready to plunge myself deep into its gaping horizon. Ready was all I ever was. The next step was to do it, but I didn't get that far because it had started snowing. First I smelled it, a gentle breeze like ice-water kissing my jacketed skin and smelling of bitter clouds, then I felt it; snowflakes melting into my hair and dotting my cheeks.
I loved snow. This is why I stopped. Before then, the weather had been clear, too clear for my liking. What perfect way to die than to do it when the world wasn't looking at me with favor in its eyes? Now there was favor, snowy favor, coming down on me like little white, cold angels.
For the first time in ten years, I opened my mouth and stuck out my tongue, letting the snowfall dance onto my tastebuds. What I tasted wasn't any good (hard to beat ginger ale) but it was cold and it was sweet and it was calming. I closed my eyes. I held out my arms. I felt that this was a sign from God or Santa or the man on the moon, telling me not to take that step. Telling me to wait. When you least expect it, the most endearing things might happen. For me, as ruined as my life was, endearing came in the form of frosty snowflakes.
There was not much else I could call endearing on that day, unlike many other people in the world. Christmas, winter, the happiest time of the year, when the world smiled and children's faces went jolly-red and families came together. For me, there was no family. No jolly. No happy. Just snow and that holiday creeping up on me like it had the year before—the year I lost my sister to suicide.
This year, I had felt entirely out of place, as if my body and the rest of the world had separated, and I'd been condemned to my shackles dangling above the planet caked in snow—forced to watch families unite over crispy fireplaces, children praise the snow, streets become alight with life and noise and candy. I watched and I watched and I hurt a little inside every time I saw Christmas lights flicker on because the red ones made me think of my little sister.
Her cheeks never turned jolly-red like the other children. Her wrists did.
That year, I figured I might be a little depressed. There was no magic to the holidays anymore, only suffering and frequently reoccurring dreams that my sister woke me up early to open presents. And I thought if there was no magic now, there'd never be magic again, so why waste my time and effort holding out for the impossible when I could just take that one step, take that last breath, and hit the ground?
But the snow. My sign. It was still falling, faster now. I tasted a last few flakes on my tongue and backed away from the edge of the roof, scooped up my empty pop can and sauntered off for the stairs, leaving that horrible thought behind on the rooftop. Someday it might find me again, hopefully it stayed gone, but as far as I was concerned, it was as condemned to one spot as I was condemned to feeling as though I'd been hoisted over the world during this time of the year—dangling over the mistletoe, never underneath it, so to speak, never again given the chance to kiss the life I had come to despise with all of my being.
❆
Chapter 1
[above the mistletoe.]
❆
11 months—and some change—later
. . .
Almost a year had gone by since the day I almost jumped to my death. I'd recently turned the big one-eight and treated myself to a McDonald's dinner with the first chunk of my paycheck as celebration. I was a Target employee, sitting on twelve bucks an hour, which didn't add up to much in the long run but got me through well enough. I lived alone in a pretty decent apartment building, and although the place was small, it was cozy, and at least the neighbors were nice. They kept an eye on me. The elderly couple down the hall did especially, checking up on me every other day, if not every day, asking me this, that, how I'm doing, if I need anything, saying that if I get lonely, come down to their place and have some tea.
It was sweet. I don't think I ever did take them up on their offer, but I had always kept it close in mind. I never really got lonely, just bored. I could keep myself occupied well enough on my own with games, books, videos, jacking it, whatever, the whole nine yards.
Things only got bad around December. And it was the first of the month, so the annual misery was beginning to set in.
I stepped out of the shower and gave myself a quick dry, slipping into a comfortable lazy outfit—a long-sleeved shirt too small, pants too big, socks I didn't care to check matched or not. I glanced at the sink, then up at my sore expression. I could skip one day of washing my face, I thought, it wouldn't kill me. I left the bathroom and went off to the balcony, touching the doors apprehensively, knowing that as soon as they came open, the cold wind would blow in and have me shivering. I pried them open, felt the bite of winter, sucked my teeth, and stepped carefully onto the balcony.
First snow of the year. The serene sight brought back memories both pleasant and unpleasant, but I managed not to dwell on them for very long. I hugged my shoulders and huffed into the air, watching a thin cloud of frosty breath manifest before my lips. I gazed down at the city, now painted white, the lights on cars and shop windows faded against the glow of winter. I wanted to smile, but couldn't bring myself to. Even as something gently swelled somewhere inside my chest, I found myself staring blankly at the world beneath my feet, beneath the balcony. Car horns clambered over one another in a traffic jam somewhere. Someone shouted loud enough for me to hear. I thought there might have been a car crash down there, and felt a little pulse of excitement, then it drew back as that grim emotion crept into the back of my head, pulled on my memory strings, and brought forth my sister's face.
Without even realizing I had done it, I let a teardrop roll. I looked to my side, expecting her to be standing there next to me, but of course, nothing but the wall separating my balcony from the neighbor's.
I wiped my face on my sleeve and retreated back inside. Before December, I rarely cried, not unless I was forced to watch those sad animal videos where the end goal is to cry, but I hadn't seen those in ages, and I didn't think that even they would be enough to break me before the month of December.
My mom once called it seasonal depression, or something like that. It definitely wasn't a clinical thing, it was a sort of mood some people slumped down into at certain points of the year, kind of like a cat's heat cycle. Not to be confused with depression-depression. This seasonal depression was something else, and had its duration, but was equally as impossible to cope with as the real thing. I believed this was what was bothering me and what wouldn't be going away until I had just enough distraction and time away from December, away from Christmas.
I could distract myself quite easily, too. Anyone with a gaming console or computer could, really. I slumped into the couch, plucked my controller from the coffee table and played something on the TV. This went on for hours, a few long lonely hours that had me considering traveling down to the elderly couple's door, but I never did. I played and occasionally fished snacks out of the kitchen and kept playing and would glance at the snowfall outside the balcony doors. It was getting heavy now, and dark out, so seeing much of anything through the pelting snow was nigh impossible.
Eventually I fell asleep on the couch. I didn't think I would (I rarely slept on the damned thing, it was so small) but lo and behold, while there played a video on the TV, I wrapped myself up in a blanket and dozed quickly off, curled like a baby and hugging myself.
I didn't usually have dreams (the good ones), but I did that night, and man was it strange. For some reason, I worked construction, my head tucked tight into a hard-hat, feet clad in thick boots, dust all in my throat. The sky was clear and the sun was out, but it was still as cold as winter. I looked around, unaware of my surroundings, and felt a hand tug at both of my wrists somehow simultaneously.
"Did you bring it?" said a voice.
"Yeah," I said and looked in the direction of the voice. A faceless man standing before me. He had a perm, or at least it kind of looked like a perm. He looked very young from what I could tell, considering eyes, a nose, a mouth and any trace of facial hair were all absent from his face. He looked kind of like a bowling pin, the way his head was shaped, but it was not funny, nor was it scary.
I took his hand.
"Good grief," he said, spitting out the usual incoherent nonsense you'll catch in dreams. I didn't respond to this, just stood there and let his hand come to my face. He stroked my cheeks with fingertips that hurt at first. I winced a little and pulled back, or believed I did, but in reality (dream reality) I was standing completely still and at the man's mercy.
His fingers scraped my face. From my cheeks to my chin, up to my forehead. One slid across my eyelid. I said nothing, he said nothing. It stopped hurting after a while. I had gotten used to the feeling of roughness on my skin, and even considered it might be a familiar texture even in the real world.
Cardboard. His fingers felt like cardboard. I couldn't say this was a good dream to be having, exactly, but anything that didn't have me hugging myself awake at six in the morning was good in my books.
This time I woke up at seven. Sometime overnight, the heater had turned off and never kicked back on, so I sat up feeling like I'd frozen half to death. The measly blanket draped over my arms did nothing but provide a fuzzy tickle on my drowsy skin. I rubbed my eyes, leaned forward and reached aimlessly for the coffee table, hoping my hand would land on my bag of chips from last night and not the open can of pop.
I felt neither. I pulled back. What I had touched was neither plastic nor aluminum; it was furry. And maybe a little... sticky, somehow? This would have been normal if I had pets, but I didn't; pets were a whole other kind of life and I had just enough to keep myself living. I assumed I was still dreaming, so I reached forward again. No bag of chips, no pop can, just a very furry, slightly sticky—and warm—thing on top of my table.
I stroked it. My hand ran over something slightly smooth, but still a little furry, like two squishy, fuzzy marshmallows. My hand groped and climbed the marshmallows, feeling for something that might tell me what the thing is, then successfully finding a tail. I moved from the base to the tip, pulled a little on it—
It moved. So did the rest of the thing on my table—a white silhouette whipping around too fast for my blurry, sleepy eyes. There was a noise like a hiss, then I felt something sharp tear into the top of my wrist.
This time, when I pulled back, I stayed back, cradling my arm as it leaked a smidge of blood. I gradually came to my senses, or rather they finally woke up, because then I could see clearly in front of me. The bag of chips I missed, the open can of pop I thankfully hadn't bumped onto the floor, and...
A white cat, scowling at me.
"You pervert!" cried a voice, but I didn't want to believe it was the cat's because it sounded better suited for a human woman. "Touching a girl's rear end like that and without permission—shame on you!"
