Falling

The wind was icy as it blew around her hair, sending it to tangle around itself. Tears were forming at the corners of her eyes as she never blinked, never stopped looking straight ahead. The edge, the end, was near. She didn't know how much longer she could take it, how much longer she could live without him. Her shoes crunched on the gravel that was also lifted to be thrown into her solemn face, but never was a hand raised to fend it off. Nothing really mattered anymore.

She suddenly came to a halt as her feet ran out of space to move. Her face turned down to observe the lip of the ledge that was covering the toes of her shoes. Almost as if she were unsure of what to do did she back up and lift her feet, one after the other, onto the ledge and over to the end, the fall. She could see the street below, the dashed yellow lines and bright lights that changed colors, the red and white lights as cars came by and then left. It was all becoming the same.

School that day had been the usual thing of running to her locker and then going back to talk with her friends, to see what was going on, and to plan what they were going to do about some particularly unpleasant situation. There hadn't been any warning, anything to tell of what was going to happen. There hadn't been anything to say that people were going to leave, were going to be ripped away like leaves in a harsh wind. While her mind wasn't always in the lightest of corners and tended to stray to the darker regions quite a lot, she hadn't thought any of this to be possible anymore.

The first realization of something was when a harsh crack had shattered the normal background noises of laughing and talking of students gathered in their masses. There hadn't been anything before that single shot like a misplaced bolt of lightning. Screams started, high-pitched and eerie, breaking the stunned silence and turning it into one of panic. She had stood still, her dark, chocolaty brown hair falling down her back in a silent waterfall as chaos came into being around her. More shots echoed through her mind. These seemed to have more purpose than the first, each going in a different direction.

The world had slowed down around her, leaving her standing in a sea of moving bodies and harsh noises. Something then hit her from behind, sending her staggering forward with this new weight. Her world was still narrowing as she turned to brace whatever it was with her hands, to keep her balance, and to stay upright. A good look at the object suddenly brought the world to a standstill as she saw something from her nightmares, something that she blocked out in the daylight hours.

Vacant blue eyes were clouded over, looking lifelessly down at the floor. Soft strands of reddish blond hair drifted down over the face as the body collapsed, nothing supporting it but her. The dead weight didn't register on her body, didn't register on her mind until she felt something warm start to flow over the hand that she had placed upon his chest to steady him. In her field of vision was red, her hand covered with it, the liquid pooling on the floor at her feet. A harsh and terrified scream tore its way through the crowd, sounding even louder in her ears than the others had. With a belated thought she realized that it was her own.

A few weeks before they had been at a park. She had been sitting on the swings and slowly moving back and forth as he sat at a picnic table, just watching her as she moved. They weren't talking, only sitting in silence, each with their own thoughts.

"Tristan?" she had ventured, her eyes turning to meet his own. She wasn't sure how she had wanted to say this, but it was on her mind. It was a thought that she couldn't get rid of, couldn't forget.

"Alexis," he replied back, leaning forward a little so that he could hear her better. Her voice didn't carry very well when she didn't think about it.

"Do you think that anything'll happen. That someone will do something?" she asked. Her dark blue eyes searched his own as he thought. He leaned back a little as her momentum on the swing started to come to a stop, her mind looking for an answer. A little while ago they had managed to piss off one of the upperclassmen about something or other, and it hadn't looked very good. Alexis had a nagging feeling, a premonition of something worse yet to come.

"I don't know, but I don't think so. What did we do? I mean, other than do something better and be there," Tristan said, leaning forward once again and resting his elbows on his knees and his chin in his hands as he thought, still watching his girlfriend on the swing-set.

All they had done was play, or all he had done. She was the one that wrote and drew. Music was more Tristan's thing than hers, and he was good at it. There had been a contest of sorts, to enter into a statewide concert of some of the best bands in the area. There had been a lot of angry and rejected people that day, and some of the seniors didn't take kindly to the fact that someone younger had been placed above them and made it. One in particular didn't like her very much either, and had almost lost it when she supported her boyfriend. She shrugged it off, but after thinking about it for a while Alexis wasn't so sure anymore.

"We can't really hide, can we?" Alexis said, looking down at her feet as she came to a stop, the toes making little furrows in the ground under her. Tristan sighed and got up, going around behind her to wrap his arms around her waist and give her a hug.

"We'll be just fine," he whispered.

A particularly cold and sharp gust of wind tore at her, tugging at her hair and clothes. Her eyes started to water furiously as she looked upwards at the cloudless sky with the pale moon beaming down on top of her. Something reminiscent of fury started to well up in her, started to bubble to the surface. Her face lost its calm mask, the visage shattering to millions of pieces on the ground of her mental plain.

"Why?" she nearly screamed, her voice harsh from disuse. She had refused to talk to people for so long that it hurt to utter the words now. "Why was he taken away! Why did they all go?"

Nothing but the whistle of the wind and the honking of traffic far below was her answer, doing nothing to assuage her temper, her anger at the helplessness of her situation. She hated feeling helpless. She hated fearing in general, but feeling helpless was something that she couldn't handle very well at all. Tears of rage and frustration started to brim in her eyes, threatening to overflow just like the rest of her emotions that were hiding under the surface.

* * * * *

The funeral had been a week after his death, after the shootings. Many people still weren't over the shock; walking around like stunned zombies. Some barely functioned, and many had to be sent to therapists to try and bring them back to reality. She had refused to go, had protested vilely, and hadn't gone. She had her own way of dealing with things like this, even if it was the first time this had happened.

Her dead eyes watched as the procession of people walked around the open grave, each whispering their own parting words as the passed. She said nothing, only stood in the back and took it all in, her jeans and sweatshirt seeming out of place, but appropriate all the same. Her solution had been to shut down emotionally, to not deal with the sensation of the pain that threatened to swamp her senses.

"Alexis," a concerned voice said near her. She turned and fixed her eyes upon them, not really caring what people thought. It was her mother. Something in her wanted to sneer and turn away, but she kept her composure.

"Don't you want to say your last words?" her mother pushed, concern and sympathy written on her face.

"I already have," Alexis said and turned away, walking quickly away from all of the people, her long hair loose and flowing behind her. Something cold had taken over her soul, and was eating slowly away at what was left of her insides, freezing all that it touched.

"Why are you like this?" Tristan asked, looking her in the eye and taking the book that she had been reading away from her. Alexis frowned and reached for it again, trying to take it back, but was deterred when Tristan threw it to the other side of the room.

"Like what?" she snapped, her eyes sparking angrily up at his. She didn't care that she was in one of her darker moods and that she was reading something sad at the same time. It was the mood she was in. In her mind it was better than destroying things like she felt the urge to.

"Why do you hide yourself away?" he asked, coming to sit on the bed next to her and wrap her in his strong embrace. She hardened. She wasn't going to let him get to her and break her defenses down, not this time.

"Because I can," she said stubbornly. Inside she knew that her walls were crumbling and mentally sighed. She couldn't hide from him, she couldn't fight with him and not feel bad about it.

"That's not a good answer. You know that I hate it when you get into these moods, when you act like this. You're pushing me away again!" he snapped, his eyes staring down into hers, not giving an inch of what was gained.

"Why do you keep running away from me?" he asked, softening a little as he looked down at her. His eyes were compelling her to tell, to say what as bubbling beneath the surface. He knew her better than anyone, was the closest to her heart. Alexis looked away and said nothing; just closed her eyes and leaned into him. She didn't want to talk right now. Not about her nightmares, not about anything. Something was shattering inside of her, cracking the walls that she had built, but she wasn't going to let it go.

"I don't know," she whispered, her voice so low that it barely reached his ears. It was the answer that he had expected, but it was better than her cold silence, better than her not talking to him at all. With a sigh he hugged her closer to himself, wishing that she would trust him more, but knowing that she was dealing with everything that she had ingrained into herself at the same time. It pained him to see that he couldn’t help her, that he couldn't take her fear and anger and pain away and toss it somewhere to become old and full of holes. It was something that she just wouldn't allow him to do no matter how much he tried.

"I know," he whispered back, moving a little so that she could wrap her arms around his waist and hug him tighter, no tears coming but using him for support all the same.

Emptiness fills the air

Landscape frozen over

Eyes void of emotion

Staring on

Even staring ahead

Tears fell down her cheeks, twin salty rivers that ended at her chin, dripping into the street far below. She had tried and tried, but she couldn't get over him, couldn't get better. All of the friends that had been there for her had either left, or had died along with him, leaving her alone and cold without a heart or soul. It had been a year now, a year at this date. Nothing was coming together no matter how hard she tried, and now she was done trying. She didn't care anymore, just wanted it to end.

A step and she was free, falling so fast that the wind didn't even whistle around her anymore, just kind of passed her by, watching, a silent spectator. She wrapped her arms around herself and closed her eyes, not wanting to see as the pavement came up, leaving her with nothing left. As she did she thought, thought about what they had done and who they had been, and what was being left behind. They all added up to less than enough, solidifying her decision in her mind even if it was too late.

Her mind floated away with a memory of his voice even as her body hit a parked car, setting of the alarm with such a screaming wail that it alerted everyone in the vicinity and causing a few people to start screaming with horror. She wasn't there when the police were called and came, checking on a lifeless body that had smashed in a car roof and left this world behind. A few drops of water dropped over the scene before continuing on, leaving the scene behind.