Rooftops

night nine / end

teagan

I climb hurriedly to the roof and in all that hurry, my foot slips from the fire escape and I am left hanging there -

" Shit! "

I mutter loudly, and spare one look towards the parking lot which could soon be my death bed if I kept my position.

" Dante? Dante are you here ? "
I find myself calling out his name, and in a matter of seconds I hear footsteps, and surely when I look up I see him standing there with eyes wide and mouth open.

I give him a sheepish smile.

" What the hell Teagan ? What are you doing ? "

He asks, simultaneously crouching down and running his hand through his hair multiple times, a nervous habit I guess.

" Just chilling. " I reply sarcastically as I feel my grip loosing.

He lays down, throwing his body a bit over the edge and I see him extending his arm. His hands were shaking and I start belting out let it go to lighten the mood and sure enough I see an involuntary smile come up on his face.

" How are you not scared ? "

He asks and I almost want to laugh at how weird our situation is, it's a reversed Titanic moment, Dante is rose and I am jack.

I start giggling while he gives me a look.

" Can you pull me up? My hands are slipping. "

He nods and I slowly let go of one hand, and grab hold of his arm, clinging to it tightly while he slowly starts pulling me up, and once I find footing on the thin pipe, I let go of his arm and push myself up.

" Thanks Dante, never knew you had so much power. "

I say trying to get my breathing back to it's normal pace as we lay down with our backs pressed to the roof, Dante's gasps telling me he was doing the same.

" You scared the shit out of me. "

" I know. "

I say and for some reason I start laughing, and soon Dante joins but he was laughing at me for laughing at nothing .

And for some reason, I grab the camera which was hanging in my neck and click a picture of him while he stops laughing as he realizes what he just did.

I always take pictures of things I want to remember.

My smile falls off as I realize why I missed coming to the roof yesterday and why I was in such a hurry to get here tonight.

" They are moving. "

I see his smile slowly crumble, a look of confusion - shock - anger - disbelief and lastly, sadness settling over his face.

" When ? "

" Tomorrow I guess. They are getting a divorce. "

I find the question that had been threatening me since yesterday when they spilled the news coming back to me, What will happen to me ?

" Stay with me."

He whispers, his voice pleading and eyes filled with hope and the first tear skips my eye.

I hug him tightly, crying silently as he wraps his arms around me, while we sit with our backs pressed to the wall that separated our buildings.

For the first time, I find an ache in my heart while thinking about leaving the one person or actually, the first person I had grown attached to other than my solitude.

For the first time I will be missing a place for not it's beauty or it's weather or the sights it offered, but a person who lived in the building next to mine, who shared mickey mouse blankets and chocolate cake with me, looked stupidly cute in his oversized glasses, who was too easy to tease
and -

" I will miss you. "

I say letting go of him, and I see him staring blankly in front of us.

His phone starts ringing and I realize that our time together had come to an end, I reluctantly motion him to go since his mom was calling.

But he kisses me on the cheek, before climbing over the wall and leaving without a look back.

" Stay good, Dante. "

I whisper and leave my camera on the wall, a piece of paper tucked underneath it.

Walking over to the edge of the roof, I smile,

Finally.

****

The End.