The Book at the Top of the Closet

Chapter Thirty-Four

The words come tumbling out of me in a cascading waterfall of pure rage. I tell him that what he did to Aria was unforgivable, that it destroyed her. Something in me comes unhinged and I start yelling about how her ghost is haunting me. All the while he just stares at me like he has no idea what I'm talking about. And then someone puts a hand on my shoulder.

"Piper?" Veronica's voice startles me so much that I topple off of the barstool. She catches me, and I scramble upright, ready to tear back into Bar Guy. "Wait just a second," Veronica says.

"This guy is the reason Aria's gone. He hurt her," I say.

"I know he did. But there's more to the story-"

"You can't possibly be defending him!"

"No. But you need to know the rest of the story. You need to know what happened next. And so does he. If you really want him to face the fact that he hurt Aria, then just let me talk for a minute."

"This is ridiculous, you two need to get out," Bar Guy interrupts.

"Look," Veronica says, hands on her hips, "either you can sit here and shut up and listen to me, or you can physically throw us out, but either way you leave here tonight aware that you're an asshole." She pins him with a stare that could turn blood to stone, and every thought in my head falls silent. No one in the bar moves, and it may just be because it's almost closing time and there are only a few stragglers left, but to me it seems as if time itself has stopped to listen to what Veronica has to say.

Veronica holds up the journal, then opens it up, lifting out a gum wrapper she was using as a bookmark. Clearing her throat and looking up again to be sure we are paying attention, she begins to read Aria's words, words I'd been afraid to read.

#

Dear Diary,

I almost died today.

Actually, it's possible I only almost broke some bones. Physics has never really been my favorite subject.

The point is, I ended up on the roof.

I really, really thought I might jump. I climbed up onto the guardrail, feet hooked around it to keep me steady while I stared down at the courtyard below. I just kept thinking that I should feel scared. I've been feeling scared for an eternity now, so why didn't the thought of jumping scare me? Honestly, it almost felt like a relief. Imagining the impact, the way it would erase all these feelings.

I imagined that guy finding out, and maybe just maybe, realizing that he hurt me. I thought about how nice it would be to hurt him, to give him someone's death on his conscience for the rest of his life. Maybe that's cruel, but it wasn't mercy for him that stopped me.

What stopped me was looking at my shoes.

My mom bought me these shoes. Tall, knee-high boots that I fell in love with while we were shopping for dorm stuff. I didn't need them, but they were beautiful and lovely and they made me several inches taller. I tried them on for fun, and they fit so perfectly, I felt like Cinderella. Mom saw how much I loved them, and the day I left for school, she surprised me with them. Tied up with a teal bow, they were waiting for me when I got in the car to go to campus. Dangling from the ribbon was a card: "You'll always be our Cinderella. Love, Mom and Dad."

The thought occurred to me today, as I was staring down at the concrete and my eyes stopped on my shoes for a moment, that if I fell, the beautiful shoes would be ruined. And then I thought, Mom would be so sad if I ruined the shoes she gave me.

And then I thought about Mom.

And Dad.

And the fact that no one would actually care about the damn shoes. Because I would have jumped.

I thought about how many people have been on a roof, who didn't suddenly remember that someone loved them. Thought about how, even in movies, I always wished the hopeless people would just realize that there must be someone, someone whose heart they'd be breaking if they jumped. And I thought, wow. I don't have to look far, to see that it would hurt someone. Because there's Mom and Dad and my family, and there's also Sunshine.

I climbed down just before a group of guys walked onto the roof. People hang out up there sometimes, I guess. This blonde guy with boy-band hair jogged over to me and asked if I wanted to have pizza with them. My stomach growled, and I realized I wanted pizza possibly more than anything in the world.

So I ate three slices, and I listened to the roof guys talk about Pathfinder, and I went back to my room. And I'm alive. And I'm really, really glad. Life has pizza. Life has Cinderella shoes, and Sunshine, and guys who share their pizza and don't expect anything from you. Maybe not everything has to suck.

-Aria