Lilith

Chapter 1 "The Ledge"

The sounds of heavy traffic screeched below. Screams and profanities followed in correlation with loud engines and an incessant pounding sound from heavy machinery just a block away. A gust of wind nearly knocked me off kilter as I regained my footing.

Why did my heart drop?

I want this, right? 

I shook my head and shuffled my feet, inching deeper into no man's land. 

"What are you waiting for, stupid," I hissed under my breath, psyching myself up to go further. 

With boths hands scaling across the smooth, concrete surface in search for purchase, I straightened then breathed in deeply before gazing at that endless drop. No one seemed to notice as their lives continued on without a care in the world. Meanwhile, my life was falling apart. I had no control over the outcome. I had no solutions either. 

Here I was a Harvard grad, but a failure. The proudest moment in my life was graduation as I thought all my worries were behind me. 

I was dead wrong. 

I couldn't escape the stentch of chauvinism. In fact, it was even worse, now. My boss was a total dick. And, I mean that in a literal sense. Just the other day, he was rubbing his privates on my back and arm, thinking I didn't notice it. The mere thought made me want to vomit. He thinks because he has a big dick that I'm going to immediately drop my drawers and bend over for the prick. Sometimes, I hear the jokes and smirks when he's with the other corporate douchebags. I could feel their gazes like I'm some new booty entering the yard at a maximum security prison. 

Enough is enough! I'm just so sick of it. Period! 

Jump, Lilly—jump!

Shhhh—don't listen to him, Lilly. 

Oh the voices again; they tend to come when I'm in the most dire of circumstances. I suppose this would qualify as I snuck a peek below. I might take out an innocent bystander if I were to leap now. I don't want to drag an unsuspecting victim to his or her early grave. 

Let me in, Lilly—like old times. I'll clean up the mess. 

"No, Goddamn it! NO!" I hissed, clenching my fists as I shouted. "I don't need you, Lilith!" 

But I did. Lilith always cleaned up, but it's just the way she did things, though. She destroyed everything in her path. Sometimes it felt like she even wanted to destroy me, too. 

I die a little each time she's inside me.  

Tears streamed down my cheeks as a whisk of logic beckoned me back inside. So, with great apprehension, I made that long shuffle dance toward the confines of my prison cell. Perhaps I was overexaggerating, but it sure felt like a life sentence of misery.

As I entered, my feet slid back into those closed toe pumps as if nothing out of the ordinary happened.

"Tsk ... tsk ... tck.," hissed a voice.

My bangs stifled my vision as I inconspicuously brushed my dishevled hair from my eyes. 

"Jeze!"  I exclaimed.

"Don't you Jeze me, what the hell were you just doing?" 

"Ummm ... um. I-I-I was opening the window to ... to get some fresh air," I said, fixing my dress. 

Jeze just rolled her eyes with a smirk and stood their waiting for a better explanation. 

Jeze was the first friend I made when I arrived at Stroth's Law Firm nearly four years ago. She's a paralegal, and helped me out a great deal when I was acclimating to the new job. We became friends almost instantaneously. She knew when I was lying, so it was no use trying to hide it. But, I couldn't dare tell her what was going on in my head. So, as usual, I kept my mouth shut and played it off.