My best friends plan to push me off a roof. They've tried killing me before, but never like this.
"I hate you," I say for the quadrillionth time. We're twelve stories up, standing on a condemned buildings' terrace. There are no guard rails. If I fall, I die. My sneakers sink into the warped wood, and I shiver. It's always colder where it's closer to the sky.
"You know something, Angel?" Heaven asks. I squeeze my eyes shut. I won't move, I won't open my eyes, and hopefully, I won't fall twelve stories. That isn't on my list of 'ideal deaths.' "Angel?"
"It's not Angel," I snap, mentally kicking her in the shin, "it's—"
"Spare us the pronunciation guide," Gats says, words dripping in a British accent so thick he has to be part of an international boyband. I take big breaths to slow my racing heart. Cardiac arrest isn't on the 'ideal deaths' list either.
"It's Angelos." I grind my heels into the roofing plates, blood one hundred and twelve degrees. "Say it with me: An—like Anne of Green Gables—juh—like 'duh', but with a j—lohs—the way Gats says 'loss.'"
"Hey! Is that a jab at my accent? Because I can say 'loss' just fine, thank you." Gats then repeats the word until I want to stuff my hands over my ears and curl into a little ball on the ground.
Heaven laughs. "Will you listen to that? I still say Angel's the cutest thing when he's scared."
I sigh, deflating. There's something very serial-killer-esque about that girl. Give her three years and she'll land herself in a maximum-security prison.
And guess who won't design her genius escape plan?
I puff my chest, forcing myself to sound rough and growly. "I'm not cute! I...I could hit you, y'know?"
Silence. The words hang in the air for a minute, giving me just enough time to realize how pathetic I sound before my friends burst out laughing. Heat rushes to my face. Maybe intimidation isn't my strong suit...
Heaven gasps between snorts. I cross my arms. "AHAHAHA! Good one! Hate to shatter your delusions, Angel, but I'd whoop your skinny butt."
And she'd be right. She's done it before. Multiple times.
"Don't be so mean," Gats wheezes. I decide his laughter is reminiscent of a choking seal. "He's terrified! Look at him, he's shaking!"
"It's cold!" I shout, tugging my sleeves for emphasis. "It's not my fault humans respond to cold by shaking! Take it up with science!"
"Oh, yeah," Heaven replies, "totally. Do you think he's more scared of us or heights?"
"Heights!" I hunch my back against the wind. "I hate you and your 'surprise adventures!' You know I don't like—"
"Us. He's definitely scared of us." Gats adds, "Just open your eyes, Angel. It isn't that bad."
"Right. And while we're at it, I'm sixty-nine and I actually like raisins in my cookies." I kick a nail. Gats and Hev are gonna kill me. They're gonna push me and I bet they've plotted this moment for years. "When will you stop trying to murder me?"
"We're not trying to murder you!" Heaven shouts. I almost laugh. Oh, the little liar.
"Well, I like raisins in my cookies," Gatsby offers under his breath with a 'humph.' He almost sounds offended, as if I implied all guys named after book characters should be incinerated.
I point at the air. "One: Gats is a monster. No one likes oatmeal raisin. No one. That's why chocolate chip exists. Two: If you're really not trying to murder me, then what's up with you putting crafting glue in the mayonnaise jar?"
Gats doesn't miss a beat. "We didn't know you were allergic," he grumbles. To his credit, he called 9-1-1 as I choked to death, but I have more proof stashed in the file.
"Okay," I say, "then how about you, Hev? Pushing me down the Academy stairs?" Another breeze stings my cheeks, and I hug my arms tighter to my chest.
I hate this.
I've known Heaven so long, I can just picture the goofy smirk on her face. Heck, I practically hear her shrug. "I didn't know you were so clumsy."
"Oh, that's bull-spit!" I clench my fists. I want to go home. Is that so bad? "You know I can't walk, like two feet without tripping. You've known me since forever!"
"Who, me?"
"Heaven!"
"Okay, okay. Maybe, but I didn't know students stampede. Or that falling down a little flight of stairs could result in broken bones."
"It could result in death!" My arm throbs from the very mention of the Stairs Incident. The memory is still fresh in my mind, and I don't think it'll ever go away. She pulled me into the throng of kids while I thrashed, whimpered, and begged mercy.
To this day, she insists it was an accident. While half of me believes her, the other half thinks it was a murder attempt.
"Um." I try to snap myself from the daze. "How about...the haunted house?"
"Who knew they used actual chainsaws?" Gats asks. "I think that place was illegal." He says it so casually, like villains hadn't chased me in circles with bladed weapons screaming, "Off with his head!"
"It was the front of a supervillain's lair," Hev says. "They tried to kill you that time, not us."
And "they" would've. Seventh grade. I hid in the haunted house's basement. Three other, older dudes were down there, too, counting money and talking about "heists" and "protection" and "world domination."
They also had chainsaws. Really, if Galaxy hadn't showed, I'd be so dead, I'd put MySpace to shame. "Well, there was the time when—"
Hev laughs. "You need to relax, okay? It's pretty up here. Just look. You'll like it."
"Don't care." I wouldn't peek if Darth Vader popped up to reveal I'm his son.
"We're here to stargaze, Angel," Gats says, his tone chillier than the night. "So, while we're up here, gaze at the freaking stars!"
"Oh, screw you!" I shout. Knowing him, he'll let me die of hypothermia before taking me home. He thinks he's building me character. I think he'll show me the light at the end of the tunnel before I turn eighteen. I swallow hard. If I fall, I hope Galaxy catches me. She's an awesome superhero, one of Starlight's best, and she's the only person I can think of to comfort myself. "Here goes."
I blink. At the rush of my surroundings, my courage crumbles like the NSA's credibility post-Snowden. We're so high. Even birds don't fly up here, and that's saying something, I guess. I scan my drab surroundings and grab for my pulse, silently counting to ten. Don't panic, Angelos, don't panic. Heaven brushes up against me. Her gray, oversized hoodie shadows her face, hangs to her knees, but I know she's grinning. "For a supervillain's son, you don't seem very brave."
"Yeah, well, genes don't mean anything," I point out, digging my heels into the sinking wood. "Storm and Juniper make me the gentle giant I am. Now, aren't you glad?"
"No! You're a pushover, Angelos Fibbs!" Gats shouts from the roof's edge. I only pick him out from the skyline because of his blondish hair. It glimmers like a halo, and I find it awfully unfitting. A guy like him deserves devil horns.
"You don't have a say in this." I cross my arms, squinting into the distance.
"Why?"
Hev and I share a glance before I say what we're both thinking. "Because you're a twenty-five-year-old action movie protagonist trapped in a high-school junior's body. Like a blonde, teenage James Bond who trades alcohol and guns for spinach chips and Judo skills."
"All Brits aren't James Bond, you know," Gats calls. "But I'll take that. Except..."
"Mmm?" Heaven asks, cracking her knuckles. She's scary when she wants to be, all five feet two inches of her. I guess that's what too much metal does to someone. Then again, I wouldn't know, I'm a jazz man myself.
"I'm better."
"Hey! No one insults the James Bond!" She races toward Gats, who's still standing on the roof's edge. It's enough to make me sick. I shift my focus away from them and toward my surroundings.
The scenery is stunning. Gorgeous or whatever.
The stars glimmer over Starlight City, and I wonder if they only look this pretty here, in the metropolis named after them. I calm myself by listing constellations under my breath. "Taurus, Orion, Big Dipper, Little Dipper..." Yellow windows of far away buildings string across the skyline like comic strip panels. I can't tell where the roof ends and the sky begins. It doesn't even look real, like I'm staring at a still shot with too many filters.
The roof itself couldn't be any different. A picture of it could land on the Pinterest board for a b-grade horror flick.
I mean, this place is so creepy local Starlighters nicknamed it 'Death Tower,' willingly ignoring how it's no tower and no one's died in it. Rusty nails lie scattered at my feet, thrown about like clothes on Heaven's bedroom floor. The broken, sinking slats must house enough crawling termites to fuel a supervillain's army. Whoever built this place must've inhaled too much of those 1800s paint fumes. I'm no health inspector, but the code violations here would make any government official cry big, government-y tears.
I spot my ex-best friends wrestling over the James Bond Incident. It would be weird, but they always fight, whether it be over politics or the pronunciation of 'ketchup.' I guess I'm lucky. Some guys have to dish out money to go to UFC fights. As for me, I get to watch my psycho friends duke it out on the floor. Half the time I expect them to shift into a make-out session. Never happened, but I'm sure it will one day. Call it teen-boy intuition, but I've seen enough of 'The Notebook' to know true love.
Heaven whoops and I squint to make out her hooded head. "James Bond is the best! You can't even beat him, Gats." She's sitting on Gats' stomach, her arms folded neatly on his chest like he's a rolltop desk. I think he likes it.
"Great," he says. Gray eyes flash and roll in the darkness. "Now let me up."
"Not until you take back what you said, J.B. hater!"
I can't help smirking. "Hev, you do realize 'J.B.' stands for someone else too, right? You know, rhymes with 'Dustin Deiber?' You used to have a poster of him on your wall and you bought his entire Christmas—"
"Shut up!" she shouts, snapping her head away. "You freaking—"
This is all Gats needs to take the upper-hand and flip her. "Oh, my God!" Now he has her pinned, practically smothering her under his body weight. He's laughing so hard I think he'll collapse in tears and roll over the roof's edge. I can just imagine it on his gravestone. 'Gatsby Blackwell. Lived well. Laughed to his death.' "You? I thought you liked music that was 'dark!' Like your soul!"
She squirms. "I was eleven! And come on, his songs are kind of catchy."
"I can't believe it! You! Pop songs! Justin!" Even though we're all inches away from our deaths, I can't help giggling along with Gats. I remember in painful detail when Heaven wanted to be "cool" and how she plastered the faces of vapid pop stars and "trendy" movie actors on every inch of her bedroom walls.
Thank God that phase passed. "Cool" never quite fit her, even then. Once during that phase, I stole her English notebook and skimmed a poem she wrote entitled "Pain of the Human Soul." I think I bawled into my pillow for an hour. Maybe two.
I shake my head to bring myself back into the moment, gut clenched. If guys were meant to stand on condemned buildings, they'd have stomachs of steel. And they don't.
But I, being a dude who drowns his sorrows in action movies and Star Wars battle gifs, have to get a piece of the action. So, I swallow back the butterflies, squint, and take itty-bitty steps toward Heaven and Gats. Heaven flips Gats underneath her and his head falls over the building's side. I freeze.
I'm no adrenaline junkie; as much as I need my choreographed fight scene fix, watching my friends play with death like this is purgatory. Gats springs up. Heaven rolls out of his grasp and onto the roof's edge. "Guys," I begin, a sinking feeling in my gut, "this isn't safe—"
"Aww! Learn to live a little, Angel!" Hev scrambles to her feet, balancing on her toes. I creep forward, every muscle in my body tensing in response. When she moves for an attack on Gats, her foot slips. "Whoa!" It happens in less than a second. She trips. Her hands come up, flailing, reaching out for anything to grasp, and then she falls off the roof's side.
"Heaven!" The wind muffles my cry. Luckily, Gats has faster reflexes than Hev and I combined. He flings himself over the edge and grabs her. My breath catches. He buries his foot under a slat to keep from falling.
For a girl hanging twelve stories over rushing traffic, Hev doesn't seem very scared. No screams, just a flurry of swear words. My heart beats the chords of a metal song. In the dim natural light, I see Gats yank her up by the laces of her gray Converse, and her shoe slips.
"Don't move!" he shouts, reaching for her ankle.
"No, no! You'll fall! Let go!" Hev bursts into another frenzy of swears, and the two nearly sway into space.
I don't give myself time to think. I run up, snatch Gats by the collar, and give him a good yanking. His body weight drags me down and pulls my arms taut over the edge. Every part of me strains from the effort of holding on. I feel I'll snap in two. I won't let go, though. Even if I do die in this nonideal way, well, I have to try to save my friends.
I heave Gats up with one last, desperate try. He slams into me, and I hit the roof with a 'crunch!' Heaven yelps and I pant to breathe, skidding like a race car caught in an oil slick. My whole body pounds, achy and throbbing from the impact. A little squeak leaves my mouth along with a string of drool.
When I finally spin to a stop, I just lie there, gasping like a beached fish. I think Gats and Heaven do the same. I wipe the side of my mouth. "Man."
After a long second of contemplation, I decide not to scream at either of my friends for being idiots. I just squeeze my eyes shut and thank God for them being okay. Crazy or not, I don't know what I'd do without them. Maybe I'd curl into a fetal position and read Super Weekly until I died.
"That was a close one," Gats says, shattering the uncomfortable silence.
"No kidding. And uh, yeah, thanks, guys," Heaven adds with a nervous laugh. My heart thumps in my chest. If I'm shaken up, I can't imagine how she feels.
"Don't mention it," Gats and I reply at once. We don't even giggle. We just sit there, trying to decompress and steady our breathing.
Heaven chuckles as she walks toward me. "I thought you were scared of heights?"
I nod. Now, I'll be the first to admit, I'm not very sharp, and when I see her saunter up to me in that stupid XXL hoodie of hers it hits me Heaven almost died. What happened wasn't a game. If Gats hadn't grabbed her and I hadn't grabbed him, I'd be going to her funeral in a week. His, too.
To them, skirting disaster is nothing, but to me... "Yeah, well, I am. You and Gats are stupid." For good measure, I wave a finger at them. Hellions, that's what they are. Next time we go 'stargazing' I want it to be at an observatory. "You should be ashamed of yourselves!"
Gats just grins in response, like we all didn't nearly go 'splat' a moment ago. "Danger is inevitable, buddy. You, for instance, being so perilously close to the edge."
A tremor rushes through me. I hate this. Hate heights. As a teenager who wants to live well into adulthood, I've programmed myself to stay away from stuff that can kill me. Arsenic, shotguns, roofs twelve floors off the ground. Me risking myself to save Hev and Gats, well, that was a fluke. I smile, though I don't mean it. "What did you say?"
"You're like, an inch from the edge. Nice way to conquer your fears, buddy." Gats pumps his fist into the air. My knees go weak. "I consider this trip a success. We're livin' la freaking vida loca, baby!"
I raise a finger, his words seeping in and finally clicking. "An inch?" My voice sounds fragile in the open air. Oh, no. I laugh a little laugh I don't mean either. This isn't funny. This is awful. I glance over my shoulder to verify what he said.
At least he's honest.
Cars buzz below, Death Tower's roof giving way just behind my heels. My stomach flops. My head's swimming and I feel like I've just played the world's worst game of 'Ring around the Rosie.'
Heaven frowns. "Why'd you say that?" she asks, curling her fingers into fists. Gats' grin fades, replaced by a classic 'oh, spit' expression. Pale face, big eyes, hanging jaw. Very comforting.
"I didn't know he'd—" Heaven elbows him. Hard. He shuts up.
The skyline whirls around me. City sounds gurgle into waves of gibberish. Death. Heights. Falling. It all blends into a hellish soundtrack. I feel if I take even one teeny step, I'll lose my balance and die.
"You'll be fine," Heaven says. Her voice melts into the clamor and I have to focus to pick it out. She offers me her hand. "Just take a few steps. Come on."
My mind flashes back to Black Beauty, a classic I read in fifth grade about a nineteenth-century English horse. Once, Beauty's stable was on fire and he wouldn't move until the stable boy grabbed him by the halter and coaxed him out.
I must look just like that horse, standing here too freaked to move when I should be trotting from my death. I guess that would explain why Hev's using her 'look-I'm-a-princess-talking-to-animals' voice.
I teeter. Heaven shoots forward to grab me.
Normally, reflexes are great. If Gats' weren't so fast Heaven would be in, uh, heaven right now. But as for me, they aren't so helpful. I jerk back. My right foot plunges off the roof. I scream. Heaven's fingers brush mine, but I drop so fast she can't grab me in time.
And as I plunge off the deck, I can only think about how this isn't supposed to happen, how I'm not supposed to die, how I'm supposed to have a story about my "reckless teenage years" to tell my grandchildren.
And how, instead, I'm cursing myself for being such an idiot as I fall.