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viii. [song] jumper // third eye blind

I wish you would step back from that ledge, my friend

His heart is pounding in his chest as he flies up the stairs, taking almost three at a time as he forgoes the elevator, knowing that if he takes the slow lift he will be entirely too late. He skids on a sharp turn, heading for his sixth flight at a dead sprint, praying oh dear God let it not be too late, please --

There.

He blasts onto the roof via the roof access, whipping his head around frantically, searching for the reason he even sprinted up here in the first place. The his eyes land on a hunched figure over to his right and he sprints once more in that direction.

A scream rips from his ragged throat, sore from panting. "Stop!"

The figure stops, turns. A girl, about no more than twenty or so, stands before him. Her long black hair whips across her face as she stares back at him, and her eyes are filled with hot tears and icy determination.

She stands on the edge of the building's roof -- thirteen stories up. She is going to jump.

He keeps her gaze anyway, slowing from a brisk walk to careful steps in her direction. "I wish you would step back from that ledge, my friend," he says to her.

you could cut ties with all the lies that you've been living in

"What's it to you?" she spits, her voice raspy from crying, he realizes, because she is crying, as much as she's trying to hide the fact that she is. "Just mind your own damn business, why don't you?"

"Please," he begs her, stepping towards her once more. "Please don't do this. It's going to get so much bet -- "

"Get what? Better?" she nearly screams in disgust. "Bullshit! I've waited five years for things to get better, do you hear me? And everyone -- my therapist, my friends, my parents, my anti-depressant-prescribing-ass-of-a-doctor -- has told me the same damn thing: oh, don't worry, Madelyn, don't even worry about it! Everything gets better, you just need to hang in there! Well, I'm done hanging in there!" she yells turning away from him and back to the ledge. "I'm done!" she howls to the sky.

He will not let things end this way. "Well, listen, Maddie -- I can call you that, right?"

She snorts, wiping at her face. "You can call me roadkill on that Prius down there, pal. Nice knowing your nosy ass."

And she steps off.

"No!" In a flash he is there, hand outstretched, grabbing the back of her trench coat to pull her back to safety. "You can't!"

The weight of her drags him onto his stomach, nearly the entirety of his torso dangling off the edge as he clings to the girl below him.

"Are you insane?!" she cries. "Let me go, you idiot!"

A scream rises from below them, and they both look to the ground as a small crowd begins to gather beneath them. Pointing fingers rise from the throng and smattering of conversation reach the two even from where they are: oh my Gods and what's going on here?s and someone call the police!

"I said, let me go!" Madelyn yells again, beginning to squirm, and he nearly drops her right there.

"I say, not a chance!" he calls back, fighting to pull her back.

Stubbornly she digs her heels into the architectural design above a window, refusing to budge. "Just let me go!"

"Maddie, you have to give life a second chance," he begs, making eye contact with her as she clings to the window with all the strength her feet can muster. "Please, there's so much you can do and so much you can live for!"