Remember This✔

Chapter Eleven

Can Charlie let her be another one? She is a stranger to him as he is to her. He doesn't know her. He doesn't know what drove her to this. Could be guilt. She could be a bad person. Why should it be his responsibility to judge whether or not someone's worthy of being saved?

"If you jump you will die," Charlie says, more frantic this time. "I will have to answer a thousand questions from the police and all I want to do is sleep right now. I'll have to go down to the station, I'll have to look your damn family in the eye and explain why I didn't try my damn hardest to. . . look, how old are you? You can't be older than eighteen. Is it really that bad? Did you not make prom queen? Did your parents stop you from seeing a boy you like?"

She finally stops whispering and she turns her head to look at him. He glances into her eyes for the first time and he's startled. She's beautiful. Her golden-brown eyes are plagued with something sinister and devoid of joy. Something is broken inside of her and he can't imagine a girl with a face like that could feel it.

"What?" she whispers. "You think I'd be here because of a boy?"

"At last she speaks," Charlie mumbles. "Have I made you mad? That's good."

"You need to go. Now."

"Trust me, I wish I could but. . . I'm kind of a witness now. If you jump then I need to be here to explain what happened."

"Why would anyone care?" she says. "I have no one left. They pretend to care, all of them, even you. A stranger."

"I'm not pretending," Charlie says. "I don't care. I don't know you, lady. Like I said, I'd just rather not spend my morning writing statements. I mean we're already on camera." He points towards the CCTV camera operating across the street, but the girl doesn't look. "If that shows me walking away then the entire world will know about it."

"Why does that sound like the most honest thing you've ever said in your life?" she says quietly.

"Because it is. I tried to talk you out of it, I did my part."

"There is no voice in this world that can talk me out of this," she says. "I hope you never have to feel the amount of pain that walks someone along this bridge."

"Pain or not, isn't it selfish? What about your family?"

"My family will understand better than anyone else." The girl smiles to herself, slowly releasing her fingers away from the ledge.

Charlie inhales a breath and exhales thick air. If he walks away he will have to explain that. There will be a knock on his door tomorrow and he will be the most hated person of the year. What kind of person would walk away from another about to die? What kind of man would sleep knowing a soon-to-be-dead girl passed him her last thoughts and trusted him with them?

This girl is ill. She needs help. She needs support. She needs someone to tell her lies about how amazing she is and how much of her life deserves to be lived. She needs someone to take her hand and walk with her through the pain that brought her here. But this girl is alone. No one that cares about her is here; he is. What does he do with that?

"Is this really what you want?" Charlie asks her.

"Yes."

"I don't believe you. I don't believe that diving head first into freezing cold water is what anyone would want."

"That part doesn't matter. It's what it will give me. Does that make me depressed? Crazy? Any different from you?"

"I don't know."

"And you never will." She turns to meet his eyes, and it's then, in that moment, that Charlie recognizes her. He doesn't understand why it's taken so long to realize but he knows who she is now.