Page 11 of Not Made to Last

“You have to tell me why you don’t want to go home.”

“Deal,” he’s quick to say. “I’ll tell you once we get there.”

“Get where?”

“I know a place.”

6

Rhys

Apart from some small chatter at the gas station and me giving Olivia directions, we don’t speak. Besides, I was too busy on my phone searching up Lilo and Stitch.

Lilo and Stitchis a movie about a lonely little Hawaiian girl who, along with her much older sister, loses her parents, thus making the sister her guardian. In order to bring some form of order into their lives, Nani (the sister) allows Lilo (the little girl) to adopt a dog (Stitch), who ends up being an extraterrestrial being from outer space. Spoiler alert: shit happens. A lot of it. But, through all of the absolute mayhem that occurs (which includes visits from a social worker), Nani never once stops fighting for Lilo. And through their love, faith, and a little Elvis, the trio never falters in their unwavering belief in Ohana, the Hawaiian concept of family. It’s repeated throughout the movie that “Ohana means family, and that means nobody is left behind”… or something like that.

Anyway…

I can tell Olivia’s wary of where we are and who she’s with, but she doesn’t voice her concerns.

I’d be wary, too, I guess.

It’s not every day a random stranger leads you to a rooftop parking lot of an unoccupied building in the dead of night, but here we are.

Had it not been for the security gates on the ground floor and me having to lean over her to enter the passcode, I’m sure she would have physically kicked me out of her car by now.

As soon as Olivia parks, I open the door and hop out. The cool night air hits my lungs, and I head right for the edge of the parking lot. The cement half-wall is low enough for me to lean my forearms on, and so I do and look down over the edge of the building. Where we stand is only four floors high, and at an average of 15.5 feet per floor, that would make us 62 feet from the ground. At 200 pounds myself, it would mean I’d hit the ground at forty-three miles per hour. The fall itself would take less than two seconds.

Give or take.

Thanks, fifth-period physics.

It’s not that I’ve actually considered jumping. I just get curious about these things.

About death.

Not the finality of death or even the act of dying. More like… what would happen if?

At only four floors up, death wouldn’t be instant, if at all. Unless you land directly on your head, you’ll likely have a few minutes of pure agony before you suffocate on your own blood and bleed out through the holes made from all the broken bones you created.

Pretty damn interesting if you ask me.

Footsteps near, and for a moment, I’d forgotten I wasn’t alone. “So… you come here often?” Olivia quips.

I don’t turn to her when I say, “I do, actually.” At least once a week. Twice if I feel like I need it.

Stopping next to me, she mimics my position and looks down at the alley between the two buildings. There’s really nothing to see besides dumpsters and drainpipes. “Well, I can see why…” She pauses a beat. “This is some view….” The girl’s got jokes, and usually, I’d be all about it. Right now, though, I can’t bring myself to feel much of anything.

“Yeah,” I murmur. “I don’t really come here for the view.” I come here for the escape.

Or maybe it’s the opposite.

I haven’t figured it out yet.

Olivia’s quiet a moment, and I can only imagine the thoughts bouncing around that pretty little head of hers. “Are we currently committing what one would call burglary…” she says, and I finally turn to her, my head tilted, watching her profile as she takes in our surroundings. I wonder what it would be like to see this place from her eyes. To see it for the first time.

“Would that be a problem?”

“Well, yeah.” She offers a smile, and I wish I knew what it meant. “I’m not, like, poor, but I don’t have fuck-you money to throw around, and neither does my family, so bail money? Kind of out of the question.”

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