Time Is All We Need

Chapter 26

Emily saw the door to the roof open. She figured the stray cat that probably lived in the building needed some rescuing before she closed the door. She walked slowly, careful not to startle the little creature off of the eight story building. But to her surprise, she wasn't met with a little critter. Quickly she typed out a message to Toby, and slipped her phone back in to her pocket.

She wished she hadn't left her coat in the car. The snow underneath her boots crunched when she took steps to the ledge of the building. They had been hit with a pretty heavy snowstorm, just one day before Thanksgiving. That meant, they would have a long cold winter. And today was no different, it was cold out, and she wasn't prepared to be outside for much longer than two minutes.

She sat down on the ledge, looking down at the busy city below. She could feel herself starting to get worked up and having no idea what to say to the young adult next to her. "Y-you don't have to do this." Emily didn't want to be blunt, or say the wrong thing to the girl. It was clear that she still had people who cared about her, considering that there was a note left in the doorway under a pebble.

"I don't...I'm losing everybody." The girl sniffled, still not bringing her eyes up to meet Emily. At least she had her winter jacket on, at that, Emily was jealous. "My parents are getting a divorce, my best friend is mad at me because we had the same crush except he chose her. So now she's avoiding me. I'm failing classes. My scholarship is gone. I'm scared, I don't know what to do." The girl rambled off, shaking with every sob. Emily was terrified she was going to fall with each movement her body made.

"I feel like the world is crumbling from underneath my feet." She swiped her hand through her hair. "I feel so alone; nobody understands me. Nobody cares about me."

"I understand how you feel." Emily simply stated, trying to get the girl to see how it was okay to feel these things. Her feelings were valid, but that didn't mean she had to give up.

She finally saw the green eyes of the girl next to her. Her long black hair fell down past her shoulders. She squinted through her tears at Emily's badge. "What the hell do you know Captain Fields? Your life must be so perfect."

Emily sometimes wished her life was perfect, but on the bright side, it was starting to look that way. Everything would be so simple if her life was a fairytale. She tilted her head to the side, her tongue clicking once off the roof of her mouth as she turned her gaze out past the city. "I'd say it's been anything but that." She focused on that invisible point where the sky meets land.

"I um," she always found it odd to say to someone, and she would never say it to a stranger. "I was born with a genetic condition; I'm intersex." Emily felt her insides shaking, but her hands were not.

"Wow, that's pretty rare. You must've been picked on a lot." Somehow, Emily's confession made the girl stop crying. Probably due to the shock factor, at least that's what Emily thought.

"No. No, everyone kind of left me alone."

"That's bullshit." Emily was surprised. Her parents had known that Emily was teased throughout her short schooling time, but Emily insisted that it wasn't all that bad when they asked. But she had fed the lies to Alison as well, but she didn't pick up on the lie. "I know how kids are. Plus, you answered way too quickly. You don't need to lie to me, I mean look at where we are."

"I just ignored it, really, it wasn't that bad." Emily sighed, trying to settle herself down, but it seemed like it only made her insides shake more. "My dad got in a car accident and now he's paralyzed. My parents moved away when I was eighteen, just so my mom could get paid more. I um, I had cancer when I was fifteen and then I was just diagnosed again almost five years ago now."