Page 102 of Teach Me to Fly

“She never came back after this morning,” he whispers.

I floor it, feeling the panic rising tenfold.

“Where the fuck is she, Reign?” Lando demands, twisting in his seat. “Think. Where would she go? Do you think she’s still at her father’s grave? The bridge? The station?—”

My fingers tighten on the wheel as my chest constricts. I don’t know how I didn’t think of it sooner.

The bridge.

Marlow Bridge. Her dad’s favourite spot. The bridge that overlooks the spots we sat at, re-building our trust and our love. Where the water runs high and fast and cold. My blood turns to ice as I think back to all the times we sat near it, and every single time she’d just stare off at the bridge without a word.

“She’s at the bridge,” I whisper.

“What?”

I whip the car around the corner so fast we nearly lose traction. “She’s at the fucking bridge. Call 999!”

Lando fumbles for his phone, hands shaking. “I’m calling—I’m calling?—”

We fly through town like hell’s chasingus, every red light, and every slow pedestrian a fucking obstacle. I don’t stop though, not until we hit the narrow lane that runs parallel to the Thames.

“She says they’re dispatching someone,” Lando says, his voice thin with panic. “But they said ten minutes, maybe more.”

“We don’t have ten fucking minutes,” I snap, my heart about to split open in my chest.

And then I see her silhouette on the ledge, her arms out slightly, and as we get closer, I can see that her eyes are closed, like she’s finally at peace.

Lando gasps beside me. “Oh, God?—”

But I’m already out the door.

“Angelique!” I scream, bolting toward her. “Don’t you dare!”

She jolts, eyes snapping open as her body stiffens. She turns slightly, wind and rain whipping her curls across her face.

“Don’t you dare make me live in a world without you,” I yell, my voice shattering. “I already barely survive in mine.”

Her lips part, trembling. “You’ll be better off without me, Reign,” she says, voice shaking. “I’m just the supplementary pages of your life story. You’ll find someone that’s good for you. That isn’t so hard to love or understand. Someone who isn’t so broken.”

I let out a sound halfway between a laugh and a sob as I stumble forward and fall to my knees on the concrete, drenched from the rain, hands shaking.

“You could never be the supplementary pages, Angelique,” I breathe. “You’re the whole plot.”

She stares at me for a long time, rain running down her cheeks like tears, and then smiles softly.

“You know…” she says quietly, turning her gaze back to the water. “I think that’s the first time you’ve ever said my name.”

Lightning flashes somewhere in the distance and she startles, wobbling on the ledge while my lungs seize.

“Angel,” I beg. “Come back to me. Please baby, come back to me.”

I barely hear Lando’s footsteps pounding the pavement behind me over the roaring blood in my ears, but then his voice cuts through the night like a fucking blade.

“If you jump,” he shouts, “I swear to God, Angelique, I’ll seance you every fucking night and make sure you never have a peaceful afterlife.”

The sheer desperation in his tone guts me. She turns sharply toward him, startled, her eyes wide and wet and full of disbelief.

“You weren’t supposed to be here,” she cries. “Neither of you were supposed to find me here.”

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