Finding Ava

One

Emerson Carter used to be the kind of woman people spoke about gently. The whole town knew her, and no one ever found a reason to hate her. She was soft-spoken, small-framed, with long dark hair and a smile that showed perfect white teeth. She carried warmth with her.

But warmth doesn't pay bills.

When work became scarce and rent climbed higher each month, something inside Emerson began to wear thin. The exhaustion settled into her bones. The bottles started lasting longer on the counter and shorter in the fridge.

What she never noticed was that her daughter was changing even faster.

Ava Carter hated heights.

Yet she stood on the roof of her apartment building, pale fingers wrapped tightly around the cold silver railing. Her hands trembled violently. She and her mother used to sit up here together, watching the sunset spill over the buildings.

Back then, she hadn't been afraid.

Back then, she hadn't been standing there to jump.

The ground below felt impossibly far away, like the distance had stretched just to mock her. She squeezed her eyes shut, as if darkness would erase the height.

"I bet hundreds of people do this," she thought.
"So why can't I?"

The pounding in her skull intensified as rain began to pour, heavy and relentless. Water soaked through her clothes, her dark hair plastered against her face. She tried wiping it away, but her fingers were shaking too badly.

The thought had become familiar. Too familiar.

Why couldn't she just stop everything while she still had the choice?

"Why is the world against me?"
"God... why did you make me like this?"

She imagined her funeral. People whispering sweet words they'd never said while she was alive. Regret dressed up as love. There wasn't much to say about her anyway.

No friends.

Just her mother.

And her mother loved her — in the only broken way she knew how.

"Am I selfish?" Ava whispered into the storm.

If she jumped, her mother would be alone. The gray in her hair would spread. The dark circles beneath her eyes would deepen. The drinking would get worse.

She needed Ava.

The realization cut through the fog of her thoughts like a blade.

Tears mixed with rain as they slid down her cheeks. Her head dropped forward while her grip on the railing tightened painfully. The pounding in her skull became unbearable. She yanked at her hair, desperate for the noise in her mind to stop.

It never stopped.

The battle in her head had been raging for years — silent, invisible, suffocating. No one could hear it. No one could see it.

She was losing.

She wanted to scream. She wanted someone to listen.

Why didn't anyone believe her?

She remembered her first panic attack.

Her hands had cramped, her chest tightening until breathing felt impossible. That night she'd been alone. Her mother was at a bar. Her friends had already drifted away after everything that happened.

After him.

She tried to forget. Tried to bury it. But he lived inside her thoughts like a ghost she couldn't exorcise. It felt like he had taken over her body, her memories, her peace.