I Love You and I'm Sorry

Bridge

Trigger Warning: suicide (no graphic details)

Jake sat at his desk, doing his best to focus on paperwork and ignore the thought that was burning a hole in his head. Since last Tuesday, when he'd stolen one of Amy's pencils and, well, he didn't want to use the word, he couldn't stop thinking of when he could do it again. He found it was easiest to sneak into the bathroom in the middle of the night and lock the door. After all, Amy slept like a rock, so it wasn't hard.

Just when he was about to give up and go to the bathroom again to examine the scabs, the Captain called Jake and Rosa into his office. 

"I need you two to head down to the Brooklyn Bridge, we've received word of a potential suicide victim."

Jake froze for a split second before asking, "Wait, so you want us to, like, talk them off the bridge? Don't the uniformed officers usually take those calls?"

Rosa shot him a baffled glance as Holt replied, "They're understaffed today and very busy. Is that going to be a problem?"

Jake chuckled nervously. "Of course not, sir."

"Well then, you best get going. You don't have all day."

"Oh, yeah, right. See ya!" Jake rushed out as Rosa and Holt shared a look of "what was that?"

* * *

Jake and Rosa were on the road when Jake's hands started to shake on the steering wheel. He prayed she wouldn't notice, though a small part of him wanted her to. She didn't.

"What the hell was that back there?" 

"Uh, what do you mean?" Jake questioned innocently, but Rosa didn't buy it. 

"In Holt's office, you were acting weird."

"No I wasn't!" He said, just a little bit too defensively. All Rosa had to do was raise an eyebrow. 

"Okay fine, I was weird. I just haven't done one of these in a while, it's nothing." Somehow, Rosa managed to raise her eyebrow even higher, but no further questions came. They drove the rest of the way in silence, allowing Jake to sink back into his thoughts.

* * *

When they arrived, it was difficult to spot the suspect through the fog. Jake crossed his arms as a chill swept through him, the bitter wind only accounting for part of it. 

When they finally found them, Rosa turned back to face Jake, "Are you sure you can do this?"

"Of course I can."

"Okay, but if you get in there and lose it, I'm not picking up your slack." Both Jake and Rosa knew that, of course, she would.

They approached the suspect, a young man, probably in his early 20s.  

Rosa started calmly, "Hey, how are you?" Jake stood silently behind her.

"Terrible," he said, his voice full of cynicism.

"Why?" Rosa's voice was open and kind, inviting him to talk to her.

"Nobody cares," he shrugged, like it was nothing.

"We care, don't we? We're here after all."

"Oh please, you're only here because it's your job."

"So what? I chose my job. I put myself through the Academy because I want to help people. I want to help you," she answered simply.

"Whatever, this is still just something your boss told you to do."

"Look man, just talk to me for a few minutes, okay?"

"Fine, I'll talk," he pointed to Jake, "But I only want to talk to him."

Rosa barely caught Jake stiffening behind her, but before she could argue, Jake relaxed. "Fine by me."

Considering her options, Rosa realized the only thing she could do was to walk back to the car and wait. She could hardly make out the two figures on the bridge. As she watched them, she wondered to herself what was going on. Why was Jake acting so weird? I know we don't have to go on these calls often, but he's done them before and I was with him when they trained us for this stuff. He was fine. So what changed?

* * *

"Are you married? Do you have kids?" Jake was searching for something to cling to.

"Nope," said the man. Though his tone was neutral, Jake saw the pain in his face. But Jake didn't know how to convince him not to jump when he was considering something of the sort himself. 

"What about your parents? Siblings? Friends? You must have someone," Jake pressed on, trying to keep his own thoughts out of his head.

"Parents disowned me because I'm gay, I don't have any siblings, and as for friends... In case you haven't noticed, I'm not the most approachable guy," he paused, "Well, I do have a boyfriend."

"What's he like?" And that was all it took to make the guy talk. Suddenly his face lit up as he described the person he loved most in the world. For almost half an hour, Jake and David, that was the man's name, laughed as David talked about his boyfriend, and Jake told a few stories about Amy. 

But then a switch flipped, and he said, "That's why I have to go. He deserves someone so much better than me." Jake didn't know how to respond to that.

But he didn't have to. Before he could say anything, David was gone.

* * *

It had looked like Jake was making progress, so Rosa had made the executive decision to stop watching so intently. Jake would be fine, maybe he really was just being weird. She put in her headphones and shut her eyes for a minute, listening to an audiobook, but when she realized nearly 2 hours had gone by, her eyes scrambled to find Jake and the man.

Damn, it's so freakin' foggy, she thought to herself, only able to find one of the figures, Jake's, in the mist. Then she realized, there was only one of them. Jake was sitting alone on the Brooklyn Bridge, staring out at the river, which had been turned dark by looming clouds.

As Rosa ran to him, she started to see the details of his face. First, she noticed the tears that fell from his face, then the way he clutched the sleeves of his shirt as if the second he let go, the world would fall apart. Lastly, she noticed that his eyes looked different, like windows. Rosa could see straight through them. Jake had always seemed so cheerful, sometimes so much that it annoyed her a little bit to be around him, but now, through his eyes, she saw him, and all she saw was pain. 

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This one is a little bit longer than the other chapters, I hope you like it! Also, sorry if I wrote David poorly, I don't have a ton of experience with that kind of stuff. 

- try_again_love