So I know I have my other story to work on, but hosestly had to post this. I couldn't stop thinking about this until I got it down, so I ended up writing at about two in the morning O.o. I just started reading a new book and it used this PoV, so I thought I'd try this. This is also the new romance story I've been planning (since a lot of people keep asking me when I'll write another romance) so…enjoy I guess. Let me know what you think so far, tell me any thoughts you have or whatever else!
"Let me guess, you want to know why I tried to kill myself?".
These were the first words that came out of Mal Fallon's mouth as I approached him. I was a college student at the time, studying to major in English. I was going to be a writer. I planned on writing sports columns, something you wouldn't expect by looking at me. I didn't have that look about me that suggested I had once played sports myself.
I stumbled upon Mal Fallon one day in my junior year. It was hot, and a few guys from my college were playing baseball in a field by my dorm. Being someone who grew up playing softball with my Dad, I headed in that direction to watch for a while. Not planning to stay long, I didn't sit down on the bleachers; and instead went to the chain-link and watched with my fingers between the metal links. A boy around my age who was waiting to bat saw me, his eyes immediately drawn to my short skirt. I glared at him, but he saw this as an invitation to come over.
"Haven't seen you 'round here" he said. He was chewing gum like a cow, and with him he brought the stench of sweat. He had a heavy southern accent. "You got a boyfriend out there or what?".
"I just came to watch" I said "I write for the school newspaper, the sports section. There aren't any games coming up, and I need a story".
He smiled, showing off the huge wad of gum in his mouth. Had I not grown up with a younger brother, this would have disgusted me enough to leave without another word. "If you need a story, right there's one". He nodded to a point behind me.
I turned around to see an older man, in his early sixties maybe, sitting in the bleachers. I knew him very well, or at least I thought I did. His name was Malachi Fallon. I'll get into how I know him later. "He played?" I asked, slightly suprsied.
"Nope, he's a cop. Came and talked to my class today; him and his wife. I'm in the Criminal Justice major. Told us an interesting story, he did".
"Uh-huh" I said dully. If he told a story, I had probably heard it before.
"He was a cop, and his wife was an FBI agent" the boy goes on.
"Uh-huh" I said again. I knew this already.
"He tried to kill himself"
"What?". Now that was something I had never heard. I turned back to him, I had never heard anything of the sort before. Maybe he didn't want me to know. "Why?" I asked.
"To save his wife. I reckon it's sweet, ain't it?" he said, clearly happy to find something to talk about that I was interested in.
"Yeah…real sweet" I agreed, but I was barely listening. I was still staring at Mal. I looked quickly back to the boy. "Do you know what happened exactly?".
The boy smiled, leaning into the fence. I could smell the rubbery scent of his gum. "Why don't you go ask him yourself?". And then he ran off, for it was his turn to bat. I stayed put. Ask him myself? How does one start that conversation? But I ended up climbing the metal steps of the bleachers. I tried to make myself look more presentable as I walked, just like I did when I had to interview anyone. I straightened my shirt and blouse and fixed my dark brown hair so my eyes, which many described as "pretty", would be more noticeable. Mal looked up at me and smiled as I approached, and I smiled back. That's when he asked the legendary question:
"Let me guess, you want to know why I tried to kill myself?".
He must have known I'd find out eventually, and was literally waiting for me to ask. I awkwardly said yes. The semester was ending, and I needed a term paper to turn in. An interview would be the easiest way to do it, for then there were less words I had to come up with. I asked him if he minded if I recorded our conversation. He said no, and I pulled out my tape recorder. It was a old, cheap, little thing; but I used it when I thought conversations would last a long time so I didn't have to write. I didn't think this would take long, and I had a pen and paper in my bag, so I don't know why I used it. Maybe I wanted to preserve his voice, the way it changed durning this surely-emotional story. So I pressed record, and he told his story. I was a good audience, and was genuinely surprised at how the story went. I was a little angry Mal kept this information from me for so long, and annoyed that I didn't even know he was coming here today; but as soon as he started talking his voice seemed to take me away from all this. Afterward I thanked him, and we said goodbye with a hug; one a parent would give a child. I felt like my life had changed after I heard everything he said, and I brooded over it several days until I had the courage to sit down and listen to the recording to begin my paper. This is what I wrote.
It was late summer. Things were slow around the San Fransisco police department. Mal was in his early thirties, and things finally started to be slowing down. The past two years he had spent chasing killer after killer with his partner, Natara Williams, and it was nice to take a breath. No crazy killers, no race againt the clock. But still, something bothered him. His partner was getting married. He was happy for her, but this still ate away at him. He loved her.
But he swallowed any thoughts he had about her. If he really loved her, then he should want her to be happy…right? And if happiness for her came with another man, then so be it. He wasn't going to be the one to create even more confusion for her in her life. She had enough of that already. Even so, it was hard for him when she came in that fateful morning, an engagement ring sparkling on her finger. Natara was never one to love things that shimmered and sparkled, and for this reason none of this even seemed real.
"'Morning" she said as she walked in, yawning. For a brief second Mal could see her perfectly straight teeth, the product of her years of suffering with braces. Instead of a greeting, he nodded.
A minute later Blaise Corso, a blonde woman who was known for always getting the job done, came by. "You guys got anything to do?" she asked on her way out the door. Mal and Natara followed to continue the conversation.
"Nothing yet" Mal answered "Things have been too slow, it almost boring".
Natara shot him a dagger-sharp look.
"Well, I got a bank robbery, with hostages. Wanna come?" she said with the air of asking someone to go on vacation with her.
Mal Fallon should have said no.
But he didn't. He said yes. And so did Natara.
Now I won't go into the details of how Blaise ended up desperately trying to negotiate for Natara's life as she yelled into a megaphone from the ground. Or why Natara ended up with a gun to her head, as she had taken the place of a hostage so they could go free, while she stood on top of a five-story building. But I will say it was Mal Fallon who came to her rescue. He had used a nearby fire escape to climb onto the roof a neighboring building, and was planing on shooting Natara's captor from there. But he was spotted. The robber went to the edge of that roof, so if Mal shot him then they would both die, and dared him to make a move.
Then he said "Jump you pig, jump off that roof if you want to let this little lady live. End your own life if you want her's to go on!".
So Mal asked him if he was serious.
"No!" Natara had cried "Don't do it, Mal!".
The robber shook her roughly to shut her up, for he was holding her arms down to keep her still. "Do it, 'Mal'" he said tauntingly, using the name Natara had just called him mockingly.
"So if I jump—" Mal yelled above the wind. I can imagine how hard it was to hear him with the distance of the two buildings "—You'll let her go? She goes free, she doesn't get hurt?".
I guess, to the robber, this sounded like a good idea. His adrenaline must have been pumping, and he must not have accounted for the cops waiting on the ground below. This, of course, was stupid of him. How could he forget about Blaise? She was still yelling at him through the megaphone after all.
"Sounds good to me!" the robber yelled back.
So that is why Malachi Charles Fallon tried to kill himself. He jumped. Natara went free. But his story didn't end there. Mal Fallon lived. His story went on. He wouldn't wake for another twenty-one days, for he was in a trauma-induced coma, but that didn't mean his mind didn't make up a story for him.
This is not the story her told the class he and his wife visited that morning. What they told was only part of it, only the part about the robbery and Mal's recovery.
He didn't tell me the story about his recovery until much later. Instead, he told the story that his mind told him. And in that story, he was married again. Not to his ex-wife, Sandra, but to his partner.
In this story, he was married to Natara Williams.