AllFreeNovel
Share Us
CHAPTER38
Owen
I just want it to be over.
Defeat lies heavy on Willow’s words. For a moment, I lock eyes with her. We’re only two or three yards away, but it might as well be a fucking chasm.
I can’t say anything to make her open that door. There’s no way for me to convince her that she shouldn’t end her own life. I’ve only known her a short while, but it seems Willow’s had to face a lifetime of disappointment and despair. Honestly, in her shoes, wouldn’t I be tempted to do the same?
To end the pain?
Willow watches me for a long moment and mouths, “Sorry.”
I barely have time to react when she steps off the windowsill. I’m already picturing her flying past, her hair straight up in the air, her dress trapped against her legs. I’m convinced I have the best seat in the house as I watch a girl I dismissed as unimportant falls to her death.
And I’d be the number one reason why she’ll never witness another sunset, or fall in love, or find out what her life could have become.
Me.
I can’t let that happen. Iwon’tlet that happen.
I scramble down from the window, my stomach folding over the thin sill as I shove my hands out into the cool night air. There’s a blur—Willow’s body passing—and then a sudden, impossibly heavy weight.
I’m dimly aware of a gasp from the crowd below as my fingers latch onto the back of Willow’s dress. I grab desperately at the flimsy fabric, my heart stalling when it begins to rip. Willow screams, reaching up and grabbing hold of my wrist. Her weight drags my body down, until I’m folding over the window with those sharply edged stones cutting into my flesh.
If she’d fought me, I’d have dropped her.
But I guess she didn’t like the way gravity felt when it was sucking her toward the ground—and oblivion—because now she’s clawing for her life.
“Willow, stop moving!” I yell down.
But she’s screaming like a gutted pig, her legs kicking out furiously below her. I’m drawn another inch through the window, my toes leaving the ground. There’s a sickening moment when I feel myself tipping forward in slow motion as the scales of the universe slowly readjust. “Willow!”
She throws her head back, gazing up at me with terror-stricken eyes.
“Stop moving, or we’re going to die.” Maybe my words sober her. Maybe she finally realizes that she’s making matters worse. Or maybe, once again, she’s just done fighting. Whatever the reason, Willow finally stops kicking and wriggling. She clamps onto my wrist with both hands, determination on her face.
But it’s too late.
Gravity has concluded its calculations… and found me wanting.
I tip forward, the stone scraping painfully across my belly as Willow’s weight drags me further out of the window. I look past Willow, desperate for something to latch onto, and for the last time, I find Evie in the crowd.
Our eyes lock, and I heave a sigh of relief. All that disgust, that fear, thatpainthat had been in her eyes… it’s gone. She stares up at me with utter calm, and it’s ridiculous to think it’s even possible, but I swear I can feel a kind of love blossoming in her heart.
Or maybe it’s just my brain giving me a final hurrah before it’s smeared across the paving below.
I stare at Evie, and she peers up at me as I’m drawn inexorably over the windowsill to my death.
And then a hand grabs my belt, another my left foot, another my right.
Am I hallucinating?
A sudden jolt makes Willow cry out in fear, and sends pain shooting through my midriff where the stones are scraping over my skin.
“Pull!” a voice bellows behind me.
I grimace at Willow, and she stares up at me with hope flickering in her eyes as we’re both slowly drawn back up. My feet touch the ground. Hands reach past me through the narrow opening of the window, and grab Willow, hauling her inside.
