Remember This✔

Chapter Eleven

Charlie doesn't know what to do. Part of him, the part he hates, wants to turn around and leave the bridge as though he never saw anything. He's already exhausted, already feeling angry again and he just wants to sleep. If the girl really is about to jump then why does she have to do it now? Why does it have to be him as the witness? Bad luck?

She might not be jumping. Maybe she just wants to sit on the ledge. Maybe she's seen something in the water underneath the dim sunrise that she wants to get a better look at. Charlie yawns and rubs his eyes. In the distance he sees the headlights of a car approaching.

Great, he thinks to himself. Got myself a reprieve.

He turns back around and starts walking along the bridge. He begins whistling to himself as the car reaches him and then it just drives straight by. Just. . . straight by.

"Hey!" Charlie shouts in frustration as he runs after the car.

It disappears over the bridge, prompting Charlie to pause in his tracks. He starts weighing up his options and he's running out of good ones. He has never been good at empathy and understanding so he knows he wouldn't be capable of talking anyone out of jumping. What if she starts babbling about her problems and her life story for hours?

He sees the girl clearly as he draws closer. She is still on the ledge, her hair blowing around her face as she focuses on the water. She hasn't jumped yet so he still has time, but how much time? He takes out his phone to call emergency services but his battery is dead.

Frustrated, he forces himself closer to her and he places himself awkwardly behind her on the platform. His fingers graze his stubble as he searches for the words to make her acknowledge him without startling her.

He toys between a greeting, a question, or an outright statement. Eventually he sighs and says the first thing that comes to mind.

"That's a long way down." Charlie whistles and sticks his head over the ledge. The water below is stretched out for miles and is so far down that it looks like a certain death. "Is down where you want to go?"

To his surprise, the girl doesn't react. Not to his presence or his question. She doesn't even blink. She mumbles something quietly to herself, a sort of prayer. He notices something familiar about her face, it is nagging him that he knows her from somewhere. The girl is young, possibly around his age. Maybe they've met crossed paths before.

"If you do this," he says. "If you jump, just be warned that I don't feel guilt easily. I won't spend the rest of my life questioning if I should have done something else because frankly I believe that we are all responsible for ourselves."

The girl closes her eyes, taking a large breath as she starts to twist a small medallion in her fingertips that is attached to a chain around her throat.

"If you're having relationship problems then I can relate," he says, folding his arms over the wall that separates them. "I wouldn't kill myself over it but I guess stress affects us in different ways. Something is obviously affecting you. Something at home?"

She continues to ignore him. She just keeps reciting the prayer. Charlie can make out three words; heaven, forgive, soul.

"You're religious?" he asks. "This is a sin right? One of the biggest? If you believe in that stuff then why risk it?"

He's running out of time. His hands clench around the wall of the ledge as he realizes he will soon witness her death. She won't survive that fall. No one that has ever jumped has ever survived that fall. They will pull her wet corpse from the deep depths of the water and they will say what they always say, 'not another one.'