The Angel Goldfish Theory

Prologue

        I was born on November 04 twenty-three years ago, but I think that I did not really live until the fifteenth of September when I was thirteen-year-old.

        I find it funny looking back, because that day, I stepped foot on the riverbank bridge with the intent to jump onto the river and die. It was the perfect spot, I remember thinking, with the resting river and the swaying trees, making the place look as though it's taken straight out of a Studio Ghibli scene. The riverbank bridge was close to the forest at the far end of the town, and nobody else was there but me—alone, breathing the cool air and listening to the oblivious birds. It was such a pretty place that I didn't want to do it at first, but then I was reminded of all the bad things that had brought me there, and suddenly, all my doubts escaped my chest.

        Naturally, as a young girl, a huge part of me was still a bit scared. I was standing on that bridge, my arms on top of the wet railing while scraping off my dry, red nail polish, watching the calm river breathe. I then sighed and imagined what I would look like if I succeeded.

        I pictured my corpse in my head floating up; pale, as if a hot vampire sucked me dry. Hopefully, pretty butterflies would swarm above me (most likely flies, but I was delusional), and there would be wet leaves on my hair and on my cheek. I imagined people seeing me and thinking that my death was such a waste because I was a pretty girl. I know that a corpse can't just look pretty, but come on—it's Piper Kinsley we are talking about (me), of course even my corpse would look pretty.

        Some would ask, staring down at my dead body floating on the river, why would she do that? Problem at home? Maybe at school? Did her dad leave them for somebody else and her Mom hates her and she has no friends and she's a troublemaker everyone wants to be off this Earth? And the answer would be yes.

        I exhaled then chuckled at how pathetic I must have looked like and decided to just do it. At that moment, I think something just snapped inside me. I felt like I miraculously stopped caring about everyone—about my mom, about my dad and his new wife that I couldn't even hate because she truly seemed like an angel, about my cat, about my classmates, about myself, and, swallowing and looking at the ripples of the river I wanted to die in, I thought that whatever that would come after my death wouldn't be my problem anymore.

        I breathed.

        I should have realized right then that not all plans go accordingly, and in my case, four years ago, I wasn't so mad that mine didn't go as well as I had imagined. See this: just as I was about to jump, carrying myself with my two arms against the railing and my feet inches off the ground, someone had thought what I was doing was their business and had the nerve to interrupt me. Trust me when I say I lash out at people who think it's fine to interrupt me when I'm in the middle of something, but that wasn't the case when I turned my head around to see who the person was.

        My hand gripped on the railing a bit too tight when I saw the prettiest hair and the prettiest face and the most beautiful human being I've ever seen in my life.

        I gasped.

        "You!" she said.

        I brought my feet back on the ground, my mouth slightly open at the sight of her. Her small eyes were wide open, looking at me, while her fingers were wrapped around my arm. I can clearly remember how her purple and black hair was in this messy French braid as if she had been wearing that hairstyle for twelve hours straight, but everything about her was still so beautiful that moment that I found myself crushing on her all over again.

        "Indie."

        I said it. Her name is Indie. Indie Vega. The girl who reads poetry on top of the principal's car, the girl climbing over fences, the girl painting aliens on big trash bins and on the girls' comfort room walls, the girl with the gummy smile who once walked all around the town in a dinosaur costume because she said she wanted to forget that she was Indie.

        Thing is, I didn't want her to be a dinosaur. I wanted her to be Indie. And on that bridge, a few moments before I was supposed to die, she was Indie Vega—the girl I had always watched from the distance standing before me, holding my arm with her cold, slender fingers, and for a moment I didn't want to die anymore.

        "Are you okay?"

        When she asked that, tears rose up my eyes, much to my shock, as a bitter smile painted her face. The next thing I knew, she was already hugging me, and it's stupid how distinctly I remember it—how my face was on her shoulder, breathing hard, trying not to cry. I also remember that she smelled of cheap perfume and bread. I wonder what I smelled like when I was wrapped around her arms that day.

        Up to today, I still treasure everything that had happened on that bridge. It was the day I planned to die, but she came and made me feel like I'd just been born. I always remember how she smiled, how her hair looked like, how smooth her palm was, how funny she was, how the sunset glow smiled on her cheeks . . .

        I wish I could write all the beautiful things about her in this paper without being sad, but no. Life was cruel and it had to fuck her up. An hour after she left me on that bridge, not a single pretty thing had happened to Indie Vega, because that day, with her gun, seven women would be dead, including her.

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