and pulling in desperate, heaving breaths I didn’t even want. But I couldn’t leave him to clean up a mess neither of us had made. He needed me. He’d never had a mother, and though I was only three years older, I’d always done my best to take care of him. Together, we would be okay.
Eleven months later, he was dead.
After the accident, I started visiting the roof of my own building as soon as I was able to climb the stairs. If not for those weeks in a cast, I might have jumped sooner, but I didn’t like the visual. When someone jumps to their death they’re supposed to break; I’d have a massive plaster cast keeping me together.
No matter how many times that voice inside whispered that I should just do it, take that final step, guilt kept me on the roof. Right on the ledge, that fine balance between life and death, my own brand of purgatory. If I wasn’t here to atone, who would?
“You all right?”
I give myself a mental tug back into the present and remember where I am and who I’m with.
“Yes.” The word sounds scratchy, and I clear my throat. “Yes. Fine. Do you like it?”
“Yeah.” Chris nods and turns slowly to take in the view. “It’s amazing.”
I walk to the edge and gaze out. Holden is a carefully planned city, with straight, even streets carved in a predictable grid. The Holden River weaves across on a diagonal, cutting through the center and cleaving it neatly in two. There are bright splashes of green where grassy parks struggle to come to life in late winter, and below us cars and people move in slow motion.
“How did you know about this?”
“I...” My mind goes blank for a split second before recovering. “I saw it on one of those tourist maps.”
“Wow.”
I brush hair out of my eye and squint at Chris, the weak sun glowing over his shoulder. “Is this what you wanted?”
“What do you mean?”
“When you said you wanted city life. Is this what you wanted?”
He scans the skyline again, taking it in. “I guess. You?”
“I’ve only ever known this.” That’s not entirely true, obviously. I have four expired passports filled with stamps and visas to prove I’ve known far more than this city. But it’s my home. Or it was. Now it’s just as much a prison for me as Wakeman is for my father, albeit with a little less ramen.
“Where would you go? If you weren’t here?” I lean against the railing, the light breeze lifting my hair, and raise a hand to shield my eyes from the sun. Chris copies my position, shifting his body so he blocks the rays and I can see.
He rolls his lips, and he’s too sexy. Tall and broad and rugged. There are people in this building with purses that cost more than the combined total of all of our clothing. Three years ago, I thought that mattered. Hell, I used to have seven of those bags. A year ago I’d killed an afternoon putting them on eBay and watching the bids soar.
“I’d like to go to Europe,” he says eventually. “I know that’s typical, but I’d like to see the Eiffel Tower. The Sistine Chapel. That church made of bones in the Czech Republic.”
“It doesn’t matter if it’s typical, if it’s what you want to see.”
“What about you? Anywhere you want to go?”
Everywhere, I think. Nowhere I’ve been and nowhere anyone else wants to go. “Maybe a deserted island,” I hear myself say, the truth feeling strange on my tongue. “Or some old house in the countryside in Wales or Scotland, where you keep to yourself and nobody cares. Where it’s just quiet.”
“I’m sensing a theme.”
“I’m a bit of a loner.”
“So I’ve gathered.”
This is my cue to explain my hermit-like motivations, but there’s no earthly way that’s happening. “You should be flattered,” I say instead. I even tap his arm for cheesy good measure. “I hate most people, but here I am with you.”
“Flattered is not the word for it.”
“What is?”
He doesn’t answer for a long moment, then he cups my face in his hand and lowers his mouth until his lips touch mine, kissing me softly, naturally. Maybe sweetly. Not the kiss of the guy on the side of the road or the one from his apartment; not the kiss of someone who skipped all the first steps and jumped right to the good part. Or what’s supposed to be the good part. This