may shatter on impact (tronnor)

71. Suicide Rocks & An Angel Now

tw: talking about suicide

Connor has his hands wrapped around a bowl of ice cream, staring at the uneaten vanilla and maraschino cherry, rainbow sprinkles scattered across the white.

"You alright?"

He just shrugs. "Let's go to the cliffs."

I blink at him, confused, but don't hesitate when he grabs the keys to Mum's car and starts to drive us away. "Did you know," he starts, talking almost too fast for me to understand, almost too quietly for me to hear, almost too hesitantly for me to believe. "That if you continue up the path, past the cliffs, you get to another cliff?" I make some sort of non-committal noise, not quite sure how to respond. "Well it's true. Technically it's the same cliff, but it's like a whole other world. It's supposed to be blocked off but there are ways to get in if you look for longer than two seconds. If you're more determined than the world thinks you are. If you just look under the goddamned fence."
"Con, breathe."

He swallowed, staring at his hands as soon as we had pulled up to the little path that brings us up to the cliffs. He doesn't say anything as he gets out, the silence and the crash of waves sending shivers down the hollow of my back, the missing words bleeding into my bones.

"Connor?" I called, following him up the path, jogging to catch up with him.

"Suicide Rocks!" he yelled, his words echoing up the path. "Named so for the three suicides there in the last fifty years," he said, his words meant for me and me alone now. "Max Barry was one of them, Kat Riccio was the next, and Mom was the other."

We had reached the cliffs again, the wind tossing the flowers around, the sky blue with only a single cloud in sight. The waves were just as pristine as before, but they seemed so much deeper now, crashing against the rocks and slowly tearing the ground apart.

"That way," Connor whispered, staring at the trees where the path followed. "Do you want to go over there?"

"Do you?"

"I do every year."

"Then let's go." I take his hand, sending him a questioning glance and translating his scared nod into a nod that meant it was okay for me to keep going. I step in front of him, leading him towards the path. The trees cast their shadows across the path, the changing light flickering across our faces and our bodies like flames.

After a second in the trees, I pull up the bottom of the already twisted fence, the metal bending easily in my hands. We step onto a narrow ledge, the water tossing itself up the black cliffs, the only animals here are the seagulls, dropping red crabs from up above, their skeletons and shells littering the tops of the cliffs. The sound of waves echoes like a thunderstorm, and even two hundred feet above the water, I can feel the light touch of the ocean on my cheek. Black rocks grow out of the ocean like the ancient giants of Greek mythology.

"Holy shit," I mutter quietly.

Connor laughs softly, more insane than happy. "That's what everyone says." I grip his hand tightly, inching along the narrow ledge, leaning against the back of the rock. "Welcome to Suicide Rocks, Troye," Connor says, his words tossed back at us like a ball thrown at a wall, my name like a weapon of war. I don't let go of his hand as I stop walking in the center of the ledge, Connor having much more gracefully followed me.

He speaks much more quietly now. "This is where my mom did it. She left a letter for each of my siblings and a note for me, came here at midnight, and just...jumped. Like it was nothing. Just a simple dive into the ocean. We all knew that this was the first place that she would have gone. They pulled her body out of the water the next morning and cremated her the next week."

"God, I'm sorry, Connor."

"You remember what you said to me the first time you told me what happened at your school?" I blush a bit, tightening my grip on his hand and looking down. "You said not to say sorry, because you've already heard enough of sorry to last you a lifetime."

I nod. "I still am sorry about all of this, though."

"I think I said that, too."

I chuckle, turning to face him. "Probably." He's staring at the water, leaning a bit too close to the open air for my liking, focusing on the mystical sort of spray of salt water and the giants growing from the sea, and the sound of thunder as each wave beats against the rocks. He blinks hard, again and again, until he can't hold back the tears that make their way to the ocean. "Let's go sit down, yeah?" I whisper, nudging him softly towards the path.

He follows my directions almost robotically and not two minutes later we're on the rock we sat on on only six days ago. My arm is wrapped around his waist, steadying him, my fingers brush away the tears that he's trying so hard to hold back.

"It's okay to cry, Connor."

He takes a deep breath, sniffling, holding onto my hands. "I - I know, but it's...it's been seven years and I'm still - "

"And that's okay," I interrupt. "Grief doesn't have a time limit."

He sniffles, leaning into me and playing with my fingers; running his fingers up and down and tangling our hands together until they rested intertwined against his heart. "Not such an angel now, am I?" he jokes, finally just letting the tears come out with gasping breaths, leaving salty tracks etched into his skin.

"Angels aren't real, but you'll always be as close as a human could get," I whisper.

He smiles, staring at the ocean.