Empire State of Mine

sixth

September 1st, 1989

The late summer winds brush past the grandeur of the city. Down below, leaves are starting to fall from trees, whisping past the hustle and bustle of New Yorkers.  Up above, two sixteen-year olds stand by the criss-crossed fence that separate them from an imminent death.

One mind is thinking about the joy that he used to feel with this specific date, the other, how much she wished that the first of September never existed.

The boy breaks the silence, clearing his throat to grasp the girl's attention. His mind had been pulling at the question for so long that when the opportunity fiinally presented itself, he found the words in his head in a jumble of tangled words and syllables.  

"What is it?" Leighton asks her friend, one eyebrow raised.

Charlie looks down at his feet, mumbling the question that had been tugging at his brain for a while now. "Why did you always used to come here on September one?" 

 She raises an eyebrow at him curiosly. "What do you mean? It's our tradition, remember?" 

At this point, Charlie just wants to throw himself off the one-hundred three storey high building, because he's never felt like such an idiot than in this moment.

But for some reason, he doesn't. He keeps his feet planted firmly on the ground and clarifies, "Yeah, but we made that tradition the third time we met." He says uncertainly, slightly ashamed to tell her that he'd remembered such details. "I mean, it can't be a coincidence that you always came here on the same day. Especially since you hated heights."

Leighton feels her heart start to pound ferociously after Charlie's string of words end. She balls her hands into fists inside her jacket pockets, so that he doesn't see the struggle that comes with the answer.  

"-My um," She stutters, unsure if she's ready to tell him. But then she looks into his eyes, and it's filled with understanding and compassion, and she realizes that if she was ever going to talk to someone about it (someone that wasn't her devil of a brother), then it was going to be him. 

"My mother used to take me and Tom up here." She starts, and she can already feel the tears start to well up in her eyes. "Right before she passed away." 

Charlie looks at her, not knowing what to say to someone who had experienced so much loss. Because while it may be easy to hide the cracks that came with hurt and pain, it was a whole different thing to glue broken pieces back together.

She chokes out a bitter laugh. "I didn't even want to come up the first time; I thought it was way too high. But she got me to come up here, and she let me sit on top of her shoulders while she stood on the side farthest from the edge, just so that I could see the skyline without being too afraid.

"After she died, I thought that I would never have the courage to come up here again, or get to the edge without crying my eyes out. She was my courage, and suddenly, on the first of September, when I was nine, she was just gone."

Her tears were falling freely now, and she hadn't realized that Charlie had already been holding her hand.

"But then I realiezed that she wouldn't want me to live in fear; and I at least owed that to her." 

Charlie blinked back his tears, his father's words echoing in his mind, boys don't cry. Men don't cry. Crying is weakness, and we men can't be weak, Charlie.

"Leigh, you don't have to--"

She cuts him off with a sad smile, "No, it's fine. I owe you more than my life story if I'm going to thank you for helping me make my mom proud."

She clears her throat, wiping her now-moist cheeks with her free hand. "I guess that I thought that if I came up here on her death anniversary, that I would still have a piece of her, you know? Something that nobody could take away from me. 

"Thomas and I both agreed that it would be more fun than going to the cemetary, anyway."

They stand there in silence afterwards, holding hands as friends would. One heart shattered from the memory that the first of September held; the other filled with hurt and remorse. And Charlie learns that though tears may dry and frowns disappear, it's the hurt in his best friend's heart that can never be fixed.

_

heyo i updated and this was crappy but whatevs bc i'm exhausted i need sleep

dedicated to amber (aka OurAmore) again bc why not