Breaking Point

13

Chapter 13

The next morning, on my way to school, I did not get off on my stop. Students from my school stood, grabbed backpacks, waved to friends. I stayed put, hands curling into fists on my lap, unable to will myself to stand. I don't want to see Nadia in my first class. I almost laughed at the thought; because when have I ever not wanted to see that gorgeous girl? But I can't bring myself to be humoured by the thought. I don't want to see her fake fake fake smile. I especially don't want it to be directed at me, I don't want to go back to joking as if she isn't hurting, go back to shameless sarcasm and wide grins and pretending that everything is fine.

Is that what we'd been doing all this time, I thought as I brought my cold hands to cover my warm face. All that time, I never thought there was a reason behind her dramatics and sarcasm and fake scorn. Was everything I knew about Nadia not real, then? I wanted to desperately free her, uncover the veil that she'd separated herself from the world with.

But that was her protection, I thought. What right did I have?

And yet, I couldn't just do nothing.

It was when flashing red, white lights caught my eye and I looked up. The bus had been driving for awhile now and I realised we are in some part of downtown. The bus slowed, stopped and I saw police vehicles parked on the side of a bridge. My breath stopped as my eyes drifted to a figure standing by the railings, gazing down at the rumbling water down below. Police officers and first responders are inching their way towards the lone figure.

I don't know why, but I don't know what to do. And I wanted to laugh and cry over this realisation because isn't it so fitting? Isn't it so me? I don't know what to do about Nadia, or my sister's drinking and partying or my mother's overworking herself to exhaustion. I don't know what to do about my dad, lost in a coma. I don't know what to do about life, perhaps like that man on the edge of a bridge, thinking about ending his life.

That scared me, this resemblance to this suicidal man, this similarity.

I glanced over to the passengers on the bus, and saw heads swivelling, eyes widening, mouths opening. The bus driver is eyeing the scene with more annoyance than worry. A few people, either do not care or have not noticed and resume texting, sleeping or plugging their ears with music. One woman, an elderly lady, opened the window and stuck her head out, cupping her mouth with wrinkled hands.

"You don't have to do this!" She shouted. "There are other ways out, I promise you!"

I watched her, enraptured. The man on the bridge doesn't move, either because the words don't reach him or he doesn't want them to. A few passengers on the bus nodded their heads in agreement to the old woman's words, a few sunk into their chairs in second hand embarrassment. I remained frozen, hands still on my face. A police officer placed his hand on the man's shoulder and only then does the man's head snap up and I caught tears shining in his eyes.

I was an onlooker, I realised, with a surge of horror and shame and resentment.

- -

It made me think of my father, who once stood with me on the same bridge. I was young then, maybe about ten or eleven, and I loved the height of bridges, loved the gurgling, faraway water that passed underneath. I felt high, mighty. I told this to my father who laughed, and I wondered now what I would have felt knowing what I knew now. Bridges were high, yes, but that only made the fall even more harder.

"You like feeling high and mighty, Abdu." My father asked, grinning, using my nickname, which only he called me.

"Yeah!" Was my gleeful response.