??????
I gulp hard, dread thrumming in my veins as I walk deeper into the apartment. Because I don’t think I’m getting that smile today.
Yesterday was the first time after the mini-flood, that she forced herself out of bed long enough to helpme cook lunch.
Yes,forced.
All while finishing half my bottle of whiskey. I think she didn’t want me to accidentally burn down the building. But I’d taken that time with her as a small victory.
Slowly, I push open the bedroom door, expecting to find her curled on her side of the bed. Never crossing that invisible line that somehow formed between us.
Christ, I miss her.
I miss her so fucking much, even though she’s living with me. But the bed is empty right now. And instantly, something cold twists deep in my stomach.
The same question that’s haunted me every day since she moved in slams into my head again.
Did she leave? Is today the day?
My throat tightens painfully around a dry swallow.
Then I see it. A faint movement behind the curtains lining the floor-to-ceiling windows.
Her hazy silhouette.
She’s on the balcony.
Relief crashes into me so hard my knees nearly weaken.
Until a new, rare dread takes its place.
I slide the glass door open, expecting her to glance back at me, flinch, or at least acknowledge me somehow.
She does none of those things. She just stands there. Perfectly, eerily still. Staring down from the terrifying height of this residential skyscraper we’re on.
My heart stops. Actually fucking stops, dropping like these forty-eight floors beneath us might as wellnot exist.
Because they don’t feel solid enough.
And for one horrifying second, all I can think is how easy it would be for her to just lean forward.
“Cece.” My voice cracks on her name, desperation bleeding through it.
Suddenly, I’m wishing Ihadn’tresearched Bipolar Disorder to the degree I did. Because eventually, I stumbled upon one of the most harrowing I’d come across about bipolar. The huge percentages were jumping out of my screen, searing into my brain.
But I’d naively hoped that my Cece wouldn’t be part of those decimals. One statement from that study pops up in my head.
‘…the evidence suggesting that individuals with bipolar II use significantly more violent and lethal methods than do individuals with bipolar I.’[*]
Cece has bipolar II, doesn’t she?
And these forty-eight floors are the difference between ideation andlethalattempt, aren’t they?
She finally looks back, but her hands never loosen their white-knuckled grip on the railing. Her red-rimmed eyes are a devastating mix of blankness and resignation. I don’t want that there.
Hell, I don’t wantherhere, leaning so limply against the railing. All her weight on it.
“Hey,” she whispers, voice unnaturally steady. “You’re back early.”
