Five Seconds That Last Forever

Caution: slight sensitive topics involved in this story, including death, blood and suicidal thoughts. Please proceed carefully, and feel free to not read if this may affect you personally.

Enjoy!

5.

I was frozen.

My feet glued solid to the metal platform, unwilling to move.

I wanted to run, I wanted to jump over the railing and catapult through the air, as long as it meant I was with him.

Him.

But I couldn’t.

I couldn’t move, I couldn’t scream, I couldn’t try to save him.

I could only stand there in fear.

I was frozen, watching and waiting with trembling hands as he fell.

Down, down, down to the waiting floor below.

4.

My feet finally moved, stumbling over to the edge of the railing.

I scrambled to lean forward.

I can save him.

I tried to scream, tried to yell at him, plead with him, but nothing came out but a tiny whimper.

So little, so tiny against the sound of the night wind howling around us and the faint laughter of the one who’d pushed him.

And still he fell.

Down, down, down to the waiting floor below.

3.

I finally managed to find my voice, the whimper growing to a screech of terror.

I managed to scream, a single, pleading word.

“Jake!”

It wasn’t much.

It seemed so quiet, when all I could hear was the pounding in my head and the screech of metal beneath my hands as I stretched, stretched as far as I could, reaching out with one hand.

Please.

Just take my hand.

Please, we don't have much time.

But he was still falling.

Down, down, down to the waiting floor below.

2.

He turned to look at me as he fell, his arms opened wide.

He saw my hand.

He tried to reach out and grab it.

His eyes were narrowed in concentration, and I dared to stretch a little farther.

I had crossed the line of safety long ago.

The abyss between us looked impossible, impassable, unreachable.

There were yards between us, miles of unsaid words and words we didn’t mean and words I never meant to say-

But I felt our fingers touch, just for a moment, an impossible moment where his fingertips brushed against my palm and his lips stretched into that familiar smirk and formed one last word.

“Lily.”

Then that moment ended, and he fell.

Down, down, down to the waiting floor below.

1.

He fell, and he fell, and he fell-

Seeming to go on forever-

I wished that time would slow, give me time to think up a way, some unthought of way that could save him and we could go home-

I wished time would speed up, stop giving me these foolish moments where everything seemed to be passing by second by second, moment by moment as if taunting me that even with time stopped for me I couldn't-

I hoped for a miracle, a sudden burst of wind, wings appearing out of nowhere to save him because I couldn’t-

I couldn’t save him-

He was going to-

0.

He was on the waiting floor below.

I would describe how he looked in death, if I had dared to look.

But I wanted to keep that perfect image, his arms spread, his hand reaching out toward me, that smirk and those words-

0.

I looked.

It would be impossible not to.

And now that I looked, it was impossible to look away.

His arms were still spread, like a bird that crashed while in flight.

His face was turned upward, towards the platform where I stood.

There was a faint line of blood dripping from his lips, shining brightly against his pale face.

It looked fake.

Unreal.

The colors were too bright, the light too dull, everything inhumane and cartoon-like.

Maybe it isn't real. Maybe this is a cruel joke that somebody dared to play on me.

But my heart, still replaying how he shouted my name in his last moments, knew otherwise.

0.

I couldn’t bare to look any lower, for the one glimpse I had caught of his legs had ruined the perfect image forever.

He must have tried to catch himself, to try and save himself when I couldn't.

I tried not to dwell on that thought.

He was still smiling.

Was he smiling at me?

At Death herself?

At the starry night sky above us, glittering with tiny balls of fire?

0.

The stars were taunting me, showing so clearly despite the nearing storm clouds.

Will Jake become a star, glittering a thousand miles away? He could even be a constellation, stretching endlessly across the sky.

Or is he gone?

Did he leave this world behind the second his body hit the waiting floor below?

And tried to leave me here, to suffer the aftermath and deal with being left behind while he watched from the afterlife?

I could follow him.

Leave this world behind, knowing its meaningless without him.

That might not be so bad.

0.

But I imagined his face, if we met in the land of the dead. The fight between happiness and hope and sadness and pain.

There would be nothing he could do once I was dead.

But if given the choice, let me join him or let me stay in the land of the living?

"I died so you could live, my Lily. Don't waste that."

0.

I remember all the memories we had on this earth, how much happiness and pain and hope and peace we shared.

It wasn't perfect. The world definitely isn't perfect.

But it's good enough.

Good enough that I can last a few years, living when Jake can't.

0.

"I love you, Jake." I took a second to look down at his body, blinking back tears.

I stretched out a hand.

My fingers curled back, and I held them to my chest.

And with that, I walked off the platform, leaving Jake with the stars to be his new life.

1.