Mouth dry, I gape. I gape and shake and feel every last nerve in my body pinch.
Malcolm just…jumped. He’s gone. That’s it. This is it. He just jumped off a building, because I told him to, so he did.Malcolm jumped off a building for me, and I can’t even unpack that, becausehe’s gone.
There is a man in this world who would jump off a building for me, and he’s likely seconds away from hitting asphalt, seconds away from no longer beingin this world.
And you know what’s worse than all the convoluted, messy,insanefeelings I can’t handle right now? I’ll be accused of pushing him. I’ll go to prison.
My breaths stumble through my chest as I make stilted motions backward.
IknewI shouldn’t have come in here. Iknewit. IsaidI’d die if I did. I guess I was too self-centered.
Panic surges. I trip out of Malcolm’s bedroom and thread my fingers into my hair, fumbling toward the stairs.
What can I do?
What am I supposed to do?
Whywould he do that?
Whywould he actually kill himself for me?
Head swirling, I grip the railing at the top of the steps and try not to see them as a downward spiral.
Don’t tell me…
Was Malcolm mentally unwellanddepressed? He said recently that he thought we were similar. Heaven knows I’m messed up. Have we both just been incredibly messed up people this whole time?
What have I done?
I take one step, another, then another. Painstakingly, I make my way down the staircase as tears flood from my eyes.
What’s wrong with me?
What’s…wrongwith me?
This is it.
What I wanted.
He’s gone.
He’sgone.
And I—
I collapse on the last stair, clinging to the railing, letting the cold unknown of the bars press into my bare cheek. My body turns over on itself, wrestling witheverythingthat the past few weeks and years have held.
In the haze, the sensation of Malcolm’s phantom arms return. Haunting me even now. They close in. They constrict. Theyhold.
I can’t remember the last time…before him…that I was held.
Covering my mouth, I sob.
A soft, tsking sound breaks through my broken gasps for breath, and I startle, looking up past my tears in the same moment that Malcolm drops into a crouch inches in front of me.
“Wow,” he whispers—very much alive. “So.” He smiles, and it’s insane, and his face is crimson, and his eyes are subdued with rampant heat. “You do care.”
Frail, I stare at him. At the ghost come to haunt me. At the punishment sent to torture me for the rest of my miserable life.
