Page 67 of Love Undiscovered
“Enclosed stairs don’t bother me. But I don’t like open stairs, especially exterior open stairs.”
“So, it’s the feeling of having nothing around you that you don’t like?”
She takes another bite of her lunch before answering. “I think so. If there’s nothing around me, I’m always tempted to jump.” She covers her face in her hands as though embarrassed.
“From exterior stairs?” I try to get a gauge on what we are really talking about here.
“From anywhere high and exposed: ladders, bridges, rooftops. It all has to do with the height,” she says.
“So, heights make you want to jump?”
“Well,wantis a strong word. I would say it’s more like an inkling. Not so strong as an urge, but not just a fleeting thought either.”
I reach over the table and take her hand in mine. “Are you... okay? I mean, is it because you want to...?” I’m a trained fucking law enforcement official and I can’t bring myself to ask this girl if she wants to off herself with some kind of suicide jump.
“It’s not about suicide, if that’s what you’re asking,” she says.
“Asking poorly, apparently. But that makes me feel better.”
“It’s more like a fucked-up curiosity thing. An impulse that I would never give in to. I just wonder what that sensation would be like. Not with something like a ladder. That’s just a flat-out fear of falling and cracking my head open. But with bridges or balconies, and rooftops, it’s more about the jump itself.”
“Okay, I’m trying to understand here, so killing or hurting yourself is not something you feel compelled to do?”
“No. Not at all.”
“That’s a relief,” I say, running a hand over my face. This got kind of deep in a small amount of time, but I still want more information. “Then why the jump?”
“Clearly I’m not explaining it right. It’s kind of like the epitome of total control. Knowing that there is always a choice and that a split decision can cause such lasting results. Let’s say you decide to jump, once that decision is made, you’re done, right? You don’t get a chance to do it again. The consequences are what they are.”
I nod, still not seeing how this isn’t about suicide somehow.
She leans forward, a little more excited about what she’s trying to explain. “And then you have the action of what you’ve decided. To jump. And then you get to fall. And what must that feel like? And not just the weightlessness of falling, but that consciousness right beforehand. And then, of course, right after. I wonder if it’d be empowering to jump? Like would I feel invincible in that moment?
“Or would I immediately regret it after? And then what if I died? Or worse, ended up a comatose vegetable? It’s not about creating a result, like death, it’s about making a decision with lasting consequences. I’m not explaining it right. It’s just. . . it’s silly. They’re just thoughts, nothing I’d ever act on or anything like that.”
She’s put some thought into this for sure. And it’s deep. A little too deep for a Cosmo questionnaire. But, I’m going to roll with it as best I can. “I don’t know what to do with that.”
She laughs. “I don’t expect you to do anything with it. It’s just how I feel. No big deal.”
I smile at her. “Everything you feel is a big deal.”
She looks down at the table and fusses with her napkin in her lap. I like that I can fluster her like this. But I also can’t stop myself from thinking about how I might be able to help her. Because even if this is a bet, there’s still a small part of me that is starting to care about her, more than I should. And that part doesn’t want to see her afraid of anything or thinking about jumping from anywhere just to see how it ends up.
Either way, I don’t like the morbid ideas that are running around in her pretty head.
