The Scattering

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“They didn’t send you for me. They sent you for my friend Jasper.” I push up and actually sit on the railing. I feel queasy when I glance down toward the water and see nothing—no boat, no search party, no flashing lights on shore. No Jasper. And being suspended so far over the water is totally terrifying. “Get people to look for him. Now!”

She holds up a hand. “Okay, okay.” Now she is pissed. Worried, too, but in a mostly pissed-off way. She hates that this situation has gotten away from her. Her nostrils flare as she dials her phone. A second later she is asking for a marine unit. “Possible male teenage victim in water. Fall from Bernham Bridge.” She pauses, gives some more details. It is like she is actually talking to someone, and not pretending. “They’re on their way,” she says when she’s done. “Now, Wylie, we had a deal. Come down.”

I still have the most awful feeling. Different now, though. Like I am missing an essential detail. The most important one.

“What’s going on here?” I ask.

“You’ve got yourself leaning over the side of a bridge, which is extremely dangerous. And you’re scaring the hell out of us.”

The girl with the knife has become the girl sitting on top of a bridge railing. Threatening to jump. A danger to myself, no doubt. Shit. How did that happen? How did I become exactly who I didn’t want to be?

“Everyone wants to help you,” she goes on. “We want you to be okay.”

“But it’s not me,” I whisper. I do want to come down, though. It’s scary hanging over that railing. And she has done what I wanted—sent people looking for Jasper. “Okay, okay.”

I grip the metal tighter as I push myself back to the ground. As soon as my feet touch down, something knocks me hard from the side, throwing me off balance and also away from the water. I’m yanked up by my arms right before I hit the concrete.

“Let go!”

“Calm down.” A man’s voice. A new one, behind me. “Or we’ll have to restrain you.”

Here it is, at long last. People coming to take me away. But I hadn’t pictured it like this. Being so obviously unjust. No. I won’t let it happen. I won’t go quietly. I won’t behave, not the way they want me to. They are wrong about me.

And so I nod, like I have heard them. Like I am listening. “Okay,” I say quietly. “But you’re hurting my arms. Please, let me go.”

They loosen their grip, a little and then a little more. It’s my chance. Maybe the last one. I lunge forward. Run. Run. Run