"Please, just let me die."
That's how the conversation went with the girl I loved when I first met her.
"Why?!" I protested as I struggled to keep a hold on her hand while she dangled three stories above the ground. "Don't you have anything to live for?!"
Wait. Let me rewind a bit.
The day started out as any normal spring Saturday. My friends and I were hanging out at the 3rd Story Cafe looking for potential chicks when this group of girls arrived. Out of the 4 of them, the blond leader at first was the prettiest. But then I noticed the hazy-eyed, spacey brunette behind them. She seemed out of place with the fashion-eccentric clones around her and almost seemed deep in thought. She kept staring down at the floor as if there was something interesting about it.
"Hey there, boys." The leader said as she twirled around her hair and placed her perfectly manicured hands on the table.
"'Sup, hot stuff?" Typical Mike, already aiming for the top. "What's your name?"
"Lindsey." She flipped her target lock toward me.
I didn't hear a word she said, as I was too busy watching the brunette. The other girls were pushing her around like she was a doll or something. Heck, she didn't even fight back. It was almost routine to her.
"Are you even listening to me?!" Lindsey shouted, slamming her hand on the wooden table again.
"Who is she?" I asked, pointing to the bullied one. "They should be careful." The girls were pushing her awfully close to the windows.
"Oh, her? She's just a tagalong. A nobody." Lindsey's voice carried a hint of annoyance. With a wicked smile she said, "Watch this." Lindsey walked up to her and started rattling off insults to her, and she did nothing at all. “You know, you're boring me. Let's do something different."
What happened next happened so fast, it didn't register until afterward.
Lindsey shoved the girl toward the right sharply.
Toward the windows.
The shatter of glass sounded so clear, and so sharp, it was hard to believe it was real. I don't exactly remember what happened to my body, but all I could think about in that instant was that I had to save her. I didn't know her at the time, and I didn't care. All I could do was desperately reach for her ever falling hand that was barely reached out.
I was lucky to have managed to take it.
The sharp shards of glass stuck into my arms like knives. The blood was everywhere, but I didn't feel it. The only thing I could feel was her cold hand in mine. And that meant the world to me.
"Don't worry! I've got you!" I shouted, struggling to pull her up. Her body was limp and she didn't respond. “Hey? HEY! Ah, hold on!”
"Please...” Her faint voice carried up to me on the breeze. “Just let me die.”
"What...?” Her words stabbed me in the heart, even sharper than the glass.
"Please, just let me fall and die.”
"Why?! Don't you have anything to live for?!” Fear and concern seeped into my soul. I didn't know what to do. I had no idea whatsoever. I just shouted any random thing that came into my head.
Her clouded deep blue eyes still showed no emotion as she looked up at me. “Maybe... If I die... Maybe this guilt... This sadness... Maybe... It will all... Just go away... After all,” A sad smile crossed over her face that ripped my heart out and tore it to shreds. “No one would miss me. And wouldn't everyone be better off... Without me? All I do is cause disappointment and pain to everyone around me. So-”
"That's not-THAT'S NOT TRUE!!!!” I shouted, finding the inner strength to pull her up higher and extend my other hand for her to take. “If you died then... Then I...” the adrenaline rushed through my veins and gave me the surge of life and passion that I needed to lift her up out of her darkness and into my arms, now numb from the pain of the glass shards. “Then I wouldn't be able to life with myself. You say that everyone would be better off without you, but not me. I would miss you. I know that you don't believe me, but it's the truth. I don't want to loose you. Not now, not ever.” I pulled her closer and tried to give her some reason to live. Some reason to continue on. I didn't know her name, or what she was like, or what school she went to, all I knew was that I fell in love with her at first sight and I certainly loved her enough that I couldn't let her go.
"You...feel that way about me?” The disbelief in her fading voice was far from unexpected. She struggled against some unseen force to wrap her arms around me. “No one has ever...felt that way about me...”
I was shocked for a second at her seriousness of it all. No one ever told her that they loved her? Not even her parents? I lightly touched my forehead to hers. “Well, now someone does.”
I didn't think I'd ever see her again after that day. Once the paramedics arrived and so did her parents, she was whisked off to wherever before I even got to ask her for her name. I honestly thought that that was the end of what little true love I felt. It's amazing how simply meeting someone can change your whole life, even if you never see them again.
