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The gray storm clouds get farther away as I make my descent and I wonder: Is this what it feels like to be free?
I’m falling through time, space, and everything in between. I’m suspended; nature keeping me in this place that is neither here nor there.
Nobody can save you but yourself: that’s what I’ve always believed. It doesn’t matter what situation you’re in, you have to be strong because there’s only one person who has to live with you: the person who stares back at you in the mirror each and every day.
But what happens when you can’t save yourself?
When that choice is taken away from you, all you can do is close your eyes and let fate run its course.
Fate: the one thing you can’t see nor hear but is there watching and waiting for its time to step in, to veer your plans off the course you thought you were on.
Peace washes over me and freedom flows through my veins as my mind accepts this is how everything was meant to be.
But I have one last thought before fate takes its course: I should have told him one last time that I loved him. That one word doesn’t do what we had justice. There are a million words that could describe what he meant to me, but there’s only one that will describe what I’ll be to him now: gone.
I still can’t believe she lives here, but that doesn’t matter now because it’ll change soon. Whether she wants me here or not, I want to help. I need to help.
I flick on my windshield wipers, the bright sky has faded making way for gray clouds to roll over, drizzling rain down onto everything in its wake, which doesn't help my mood.
Pulling into the lot of her apartment building, I park and turn the engine off while staring up at the sky. I haven’t got a jacket with me but my gaze falls on the file in the passenger seat I took from Tris’s.
I climb out of the car with the file firmly placed over my head, taking the brunt of the rain for me. I don’t even know why I brought it with me anyway, the information in it is seared into my memory.
I hear shouting in the distance and keep my eyes trained ahead, determined to get her away from this area, and fast. Walking over to the front doors and buzzing up to her apartment, I keep my finger pressed against the buzzer because I know she can’t ignore the noise forever. I know she’s actually here this time because her SUV is in the lot.
“Come on,” I grit out between clenched teeth. I whip my head around at a scared shriek. I know that voice.
Everything fades away as I sprint in the direction it came from. I run around the back of the apartment building and skid to a halt when I see what’s in front of me. I wish I could look away and be transported back in time to when I was standing on Tris’s driveway with Amelia within reach.
They say whenever there’s an emergency that most people’s instincts tell them to run away, they dodge whatever the outcome will be to save themselves. But when my heart leaps into my throat at the same time I hear the papers from the file spill out of my hand onto the wet, dirty asphalt, self-preservation is the last thing on my mind.
The unhinged woman—Phoebe—that came to “warn” us steps back from Amelia with a grin on her face. They’re standing on the fire escape balcony outside what I suspect is Amelia’s apartment and with total focus, she leans forward,
pushing with a grunt.
“No!” I shout, my hands reaching out as if I can stop them as they go tumbling over the railing, my insides balling into a knot as they fall in slow motion.
The sickening thud of bodies has me running as fast as I can, the sound of groaning invading my senses as the rain soaks through my white dress shirt, wetting my skin.
Phoebe landed on Amelia but she rolls off her as I reach them, throwing myself on the ground beside them.
“No, no, no, no!” My gaze flits all over Amelia’s body that’s lying at an awkward angle, her left leg bent in a way it shouldn’t be. “What have you done?”
“Nothing she didn’t deserve,” Phoebe groans, getting to her knees and falling back on the ground, wincing.
I pull out my cell and dial 911, afraid that if I touch her, she’ll break.
“Nine-one-one, what’s your emergency?”
In my frantic haze, I glance over at Phoebe, stuttering out my words. “I need an ambulance right away, it’s my girlfriend, she…” I tentatively place my fingers against Amelia’s neck and I feel like my whole world is collapsing before my very eyes. “Oh, God!”
“Sir, I need you to calm down and tell me what’s happening so I can help.”
“I can’t feel a pulse!” I grab her wrist and again, I feel no pulse. “I need an ambulance now!”
“Okay, can you tell me where you are?”
I look around frantically. “7th Ave, behind apartment block H. Please help me.”
