Whirlpool

"I'm drowning."

"Don't say that," she snapped. He cringed away from her, as her my voice was cackling with electricity. The girl couldn't blame him. "I know you're hurting, but . . . don't act like your pain is somehow bigger than his. Just don't. I can't."

The pair looked so out of place in the looming white halls, perched in uncomfortable chairs side by side, so close that they could almost touch each other despite the fact that they were both repulsed by one another. He was the epitome of handsome with his perfectly smooth suit that seemed to cling to his muscles in all the right places, his sweep of inky black hair falling dashingly into those slanted dark eyes that screamed of a heritage older than the Golden Bay Area. She looked so similar to him as she sat in a matching monkey suit, yet the outwards reach of her hips and breasts made the suit not look so charming on her frame. The wicked black streaks that outlined her eyes, electric blue lipstick that colored her lips, and crimped nature of her hair did nothing to add to this image. She could've laughed at the odd stares getting thrown their way, before she remembered that laughter didn't belong in this world anymore.

Abruptly, his big, black eyes whipped up to meet hers, and they were drowning in tears. "I can't? I can't?! I can't believe I'm sitting here on fucking Valentine's Day. You can't even begin to imagine what it's like to have your best friend, your fucking brother, be in this . . . place. He was supposed to be the strong one. He was supposed to be the one who went to Harvard with his fucking soccer scholarship and he was going to be a genius and steal hearts an-"

"He's already had his heart stolen," she muttered.

"Fuck you," he spat. "Y-you don't know . . . you don't."

"I do know, actually," she replied, calmly. "He told me."

She could see the color wash out of his features. "What did he say?"

She almost wanted to laugh, but there was nothing funny about this situation. Not when they were there in this place with the white walls that seemed to be sucking them into the clouds, yet there was no heaven up there, only hell. "Like you don't know."

His lower lip trembled. "D-don't look a-at m-m-me like th-tha-that."

"Like what?"

"Li-like this . . . like this is m-my fault," he responded. "It's not my fault he tried to jump off a bridge."

"A bridge?" She couldn't help it, the word poured out of her blue lips. "Ben, we are not just talking about some bridge. It's the Golden Gate Bridge, arguably one of the most famous bridges in the world. And with its fame attracts hundreds of thousands of people, especially that crowd looking for just the right bridge to jump off of. Thousands have done it. And do you know how many people have survived jumping off of it? Do you?!"

"I . . ."

"Do you?"

"N-no."

"Twenty-one," she said. "Twenty-two, today, because Matt will survive. He's going to survive. He has to."

"Tasya-"

"Don't say my name," she snapped. "Or his. You don't deserve to even utter his name."

"So you do think it's my fault," he mumbled. His eyes were wet.

"Why wouldn't I, after everything you've done?" She growled.

His lower lip started to tremble more. "I loved him."

"No, you didn-"

"He was my brother," he told her, very quietly. "My brother since I was eleven years old. He made me feel like I could be anyone I wanted to be. And I'm sorry that the fact that I didn't want to make out with him was wrong, but I still loved him."