The Edge

1~Her foot slipped?

"Do you want me to stay the night" Blake's worried tone caught my attention as I shoved away the letter I was holding, behind my back.

"Uh..No I'm gonna be working tonight. You can go home" I fixed my hair trying to remain as calm as possible.

"Are you sure?" he sounded concerned as his body stood stiff a few feet away from me. 

"Yeah" I brushed my hair behind my ear as he started making his way towards me.

"Mia what's wrong? You've been acting so secretive for the past two weeks..." His light brown eyes displayed a stray of uncertainty and accusation, "Are you...seeing someone else?"

"What? No! of course not." I looked into his hazel eyes but I could tell he wasn't buying it. 

"Blake I love you" I whispered into his mouth as my lips brushed against his gentle lips but he pulled away.

"Then tell me what's wrong" He held up my chin in the palm of his hands, making me feel a wave of comfort flow by. But how could I tell him when the truth would make him turn away from me forever? Not only him, but the entire world shun me, put a label on me for good.

"It was Chloe's death anniversary on the 18th. I know it's been a year since everything but it's just.. I've been feeling so.. guilty. It's like...", before I could complete my sentence, teardrops began rolling down my cheek as the memories began replaying in my head. 

"Hey shush" I felt his arms hold me in as the heat penetrated from his chest warming my insides. "What happened wasn't your fault Mia. You couldn't have prevented it. You didn't even know" 

'But I did know. I was there' I wanted to scream. I wanted to let it out for once, just free myself of the guilt I had been carrying around for a whole year. The horror that I had suppressed inside of me for so long. The flashbacks of my best friends dead body as it lay in front of my eyes, making the numbness of the whisky inside my system instantly replace itself with a rush of panic and disbelief... 

The truth behind Chloe's 'suicide attempt' was shoved under layers of guilt in my mind, the fright that kept me awake for months at an end, the blurry images of her final giggles that I had pushed so far down, I had ended up accepting a false reality. Something that bought me bottles of sadness but it was better than the fear I felt before. It was a relief, a sense of peace in the eyes of the unfathomable truth that I refused to relive, to feel again, to even believe and because of that I had forgotten what had really happened that summer night.

 The night that changed my life forever and ended the life of the one person I had spent every single day with since first grade, the person I cared for more than anyone else, someone who I thought I could never hurt but I did... and for all these months I had let it go, replaced it with a memory that bought me a few seconds of peace, that made me feel safe around myself, that allowed me to live a new life away from the destruction I had caused, the pain I made so many people endure, the feeling of emptiness I left in our hometown as one of the sweetest souls to ever exist was stripped away from there. 

I had never gone back to Boston after that, despite the fact that my parents wanted me to come back for the fall and now the summer but I couldn't. I kept delaying it, telling them I'd make it next time because I knew going back would be too much. It would make all the blurry images in my head, clear again and I didn't want that. I couldn't take that so I ran from the truth, kept it a secret and never breathed it to a soul, thinking that would keep me safe but it didn't. Someone found out about it. Someone knew the truth and now they were gonna come after me and make me pay for my mistake..

"Everything's gonna be okay" Blake's mushy voice broke through my thoughts as I slid away from his arms, crushing the piece of paper in between my closed fingers.