The Ledge
868 Words
EMILY
My dignity is absolutely at stake.
If I'm going to plummet off a luxury hotel rooftop, I could at least make it cinematic. A dramatic gasp or a silhouette against the skyline. Something worthy of replay.
Instead, I make a strangled noise and tip sideways. Railing rushing up and my life flashing before my eyes.
And then, I felt the hands.
One catches my arm at the elbow. The grip isn't gentle. It's hard and uncompromising. The other fist locks into the back of my jacket like it was designed for this exact emergency.
I'm hauled backward in one controlled motion, my flailing doing absolutely nothing to help. My feet hit the rooftop. One knee slam down a second later. I end up six inches from the chest of a man I have never seen before.
I look up.
He's tall.
Strong jaw. Sharp cheekbones. Dark eyes fixed on my face a second too long to feel comfortable. His mouth looks like it's forgotten how to smile.
And his expression?
Fury.
"What the hell is wrong with you?"
I blink.
"I slipped."
"You slipped."
"Yes."
"At the railing. At eleven at night."
"Yes," I repeat, because it's true and I do not currently have the stamina to construct a convincing lie. "There was a wet patch."
His eyes drag slowly over my face like he's searching for fractures in the story. I try very hard to look like someone who has not just been contemplating her own mortality.
"This is my hotel," he says.
"Oh." That feels like something that requires acknowledgment. "Congratulations?"
His jaw tightens.
"If you wanted to kill yourself," he says evenly, "you could have done it somewhere else."
The words hit harder than the panic attack I was still recovering from.
Because I had been thinking it. But I wasn't planning to do it. And I had kept that thought contained.
Now it sits between us on the wet rooftop like evidence.
"I wasn't," I say.
My voice betrays me. It shrinks.
He doesn't believe me. I can see it in the guarded set of his shoulders.
"I truly slipped."
"I'll call someone," he says. "Someone who can handle this. Before they find a body lying around somewhere."
That's it. The final crack.
I start crying. And I never cry prettily.
I tested it once in front of a mirror when I was fourteen and concluded I simply do not have the face for delicate tears.
This is full-body. It starts in my shoulders, spreads to my chest, then hijacks my lungs until I sound like I'm being repeatedly ambushed by grief.
The man freezes. He looks... alarmed.
"Stop," he says.
I do not stop.
"I shouldn't have said that."
Still crying.
"I apologize."
The word sounds foreign in his mouth.
He takes a step toward me, then hesitates as if unsure whether proximity will help or make it something worse.
"I'm sorry," he says again. Quieter.
That one feels real. I keep crying anyway.
Eventually it tapers off slowly, the way storms do. My legs wobbled from exhaustion so I bent at my knees and repeated for his sake, "I didn't try to kill myself," I hiccup. "I slipped." I really wanted him to believe me.
I don't tell him about the part where I stood at the railing and let the thought exist though.
He studies me again. The anger is gone. A hint of guilt replaces it. Without asking, he shrugs off his jacket and drapes it over my shoulders.
It swallows me whole.
"Shower," he says, and pulled me up on my feet. "Rest."
"I— what?"
He's already moving toward the door like the decision has been finalized without my vote. He holds it open and waits.
His eyes aren't angry now. They are much softer now.
I open my mouth to protest, to explain that I cannot afford a room in a place where the carpet probably has its own maintenance budget.
But he's already walking toward the main hotel entrance.
And I follow. Because I don't know what else to do.
He doesn't look back to check if I'm still there. He just walks like he's accustomed to people falling into step behind him.
The hallway is all dark wood and muted lighting. The carpet pattern alone could probably pay my overdue electricity bill.
We pass the elevators and he keeps walking. Past a door marked PRIVATE.
He pulls a key card from his pocket, swipes it, and pushes open a door.
He steps inside.
I hesitate at the doorway and he turns for a moment to look at me. The corner of his mouth lifts slightly.
He holds out the key card.
And for reasons I cannot fully articulate, I step forward and take it.
Our fingers don't touch.
"Twenty-third floor," he says. "Room 2314."
I stare at the card as he walks away.
The hotel logo gleams in gold with his name is printed neatly on the sleeve.
Leo Ashford.
The door closes between us. The lock clicks and suddenly the suite feels enormous.
I stand in the center of it, wearing a stranger's jacket, holding a key card with his name on it.
- Writer
