Page 1 of The Edge of Never

One

Kit

You’d think standing on the edge of the cliff would leave you with your life flashing before your eyes. Not me. I was contemplating my life, sure, but not in the sense that I’d decided it should end. It was a case of wondering how the fuck I got here.

The decisions I’d made and why I’d made them haunted me. Made me realise my adult life had been a series of mistakes leading to an epic finale that only drove me to hate everything. Perhaps that was being a tad dramatic, but I wasn’t in the mood to be reasonable about what happened to me.

I needed time to contemplate what next. To stop my life from disintegrating in front of my eyes. To get far away from the shitstorm as possible. I wasn’t a coward, but there was only so much one person could take. And I was way over the limit.

The wind whipped my almost shoulder-length dark hair around my face as I stared out at the ocean before me. Mist shrouded the horizon and the space around me. My arms looped around my stomach, drawing my coat tighter against the chill in the late January air. The new year was meant to bring a new beginning. However, the ongoing fucked up situation in my life had marred it. It left me reeling and ready to disappear into nothingness.

A scream lodged itself in my throat. The need to let out my frustration was on the tip of my tongue. I held it back, opting to remain silent in my pain. No one cared about how it affected me. How I was drowning in misery and failure. It wasn’t about me. Maybe it never had been.

Two arms banded around me, pulling me backwards. I stumbled but caught myself before I fell into them.

“What the fuck are you doing?”

My whole body tensed at the sound of her voice. I spun around and faced the woman who dragged me back from the cliff’s edge.

Sienna had a deadly expression on her pale face. Her red hair was tucked into the hood of her jumper and her brown eyes were full of anger.

I didn’t understand why she was here or how she’d found me.

“Seriously, what the fuck, Kit?”

I unstuck my tongue from the roof of my mouth.

“What do you mean?”

She waved a hand at the ocean behind us.

“Are you kidding me? You looked like you were about to jump.”

I rubbed my arms.

“Oh.”

“Oh? Is that all you have to say? Oh? Jesus fucking Christ, Kit. You scared the shit out of me.”

I stepped further away from the cliff and turned to the side, not wanting to see the reproachful look in her eyes. She’d read the whole situation wrong, but it shouldn’t surprise me. Sienna had a habit of doing that.

“I wasn’t going to jump.”

“Then what the hell were you doing?”

I let out a breath. Telling her the real reason I was standing out here felt impossible after what happened. She should already know, anyway. None of this had been easy. Yet my feelings weren’t a priority for her. I couldn’t remember a time when they had been.

“I came out here to think, not commit suicide. You should know I have no intention of doing that.”

“Funny, I don’t think I know what you’re capable of any longer after the way you’ve been acting recently.”

My hand clenched into a fist at my side. Her words stung. Just because I hadn’t been there for her like all the other times she’d been in crisis mode, it didn’t mean I’d changed. I was still me. Still Kit. But I was sad. So fucking sad that it hurt to breathe sometimes. You don’t go through a tragedy without it scarring you somehow. Without it leaving a mark.

“The way I’ve been acting?” I pressed my other hand to my chest and looked at her again. “I lost a baby, Sienna. How do you think I’m supposed to act after that?”

The flash of pain in her eyes made me sorry I’d brought it up.

“My baby. You lost my baby. He wasn’t yours.”

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