She whips her head back. A second ago, she was standing on the edge of a lifetime, swaying in the wind, proud of her height. Suddenly, it’s no longer a fantasy, an alternative reality she just tended to slip in. Suddenly, it’s no longer a number she longed to answer, not some wishful thinking. She knows. In this world, only one person can call her “Jess”, and only she could make her turn back, unravelling all the unspoken, the words she longed to speak, but held back for the fear of being met with silence, and silenced. “Kel.” She chokes out, and all her uncertainty washes away as the next wave crashes on shore, closing her eyes in the momentary pause. Her heart twinges, unwilling it let her pull away from its grasp, unwilling to let life and death become one as she reaches a still. She watches, as her vision blurs, and the edge she almost fell over disappears. She feels the flow of liquid down her hollow cheeks, and her eyes dart up to the sky, it has to be the clouds unburdening themselves, for she does not have the ability, no, privilege, to cry. She pushes away the shameful water with the edges of her fingers, not knowing what she was trying to conceal, perhaps it was just because she no longer bothered to smear on concealer. The tips of her toes subconsciously toe the lie of her existence, and she doesn’t feel like turning back, considering how her sister was probably a well executed hallucination. “Jessica.” Her full name. It doesn’t click with that familiar voice. Or at least the voice that used to be second nature to her ears. She wants to turn around, but she simply can’t. Not when she’s  there, almost there, less than a breadth of hair away. One more step and it would be over. No more rummaging through the rampage of emotions. No more nights curled up in bed, alone. No more time to think about what could have been. No more pretend phone calls that would never be made. No more life to destroy, bit by bit. But she turns around, spinning on the tips of the toes, challenging her self control. How one edge can she be until she tips over, untouchable? 

There she is. 

Crying into her hands, how pathetic. Like she is the one dying? I wish I could see the look on her face when she looks up and sees absolute nothingness but the empty barrier between us. 

“Jess, what’s going on? I’m here, and I’m not going anywhere, okay?”

Really? What if I want to go somewhere?

“What drove you here? Please, Jessi, I don’t want it to end like this.”

My car and I drove me here, to this bridge. Maybe I should have just crashed it.

“Jess”

“Jessi”

“Jessica”

“Please”

“Don’t”

“I”

“Me”

“We”

“Us”

Kelly. I. don’t. care. You get it?

But she stares into those brown orbs, first channelling all the hatred into her own eyes, but she catches a glimpse of two little girls in that reflected mirror of tears, then a image of Kelly weaving her hair just before she left, the last hug they had, the last word the two ever said. And she knows. She owes Kelly this. And she wants this, just as much as she doesn’t want to live.

Her arms, heavy and thick ropes hanging by her side, float up to her sister’s neck, and she holds on, for dear life. Then she feels a pair of