Pearl let another sigh slip past her lips as she stepped down from the railing. Why couldn't she do it? She sat down and leaned against the rail, reaching for the bottle of liquor yet again. She took a swig from it and cringed at the taste, shuddering as it washed away her fears and further clouded her mind.
No bottle of liquor could help prepare her for this, though.
She was angry, she was sad and she was scared, and she found it ironic that the carefully thought out decision was the thing to make her feel again. Years of numbness accompanied by self-hatred and a sheer unwillingness to do anything despite being surrounded by loving friends and family and listening ears, but this made her feel something.
She stood to her feet again, the liquor steeling her nerves once more and she climbed up the railing, keeping the balance she learned from the years of ballet she took to forget about her. She looked over the ledge and to the ground that stretched out for an eternity and once again felt fear make her stomach drop. She looked up, swallowing hard and clenching her fists together as she lifted a foot, but stopped before she could let herself fall. She sighed, stepping off the railing again. She leaned against it and looked to the bottle of liquor and scowled.
She directed her anger at an inanimate object because the last thing she wanted to do was to point even more fingers at herself. She was angry because of her unwillingness to go through something that seemed so easy, she was angry because the one she cherished most brought this upon her, and she was angry because her friends and family were sleeping soundly because she had texted them "I love you too, I'll see you tomorrow" . It was a lie that left a wound deeper than any of her razors cut, because they were sleeping tonight since they thought they would see her again when they wouldn't.
She almost laughed.
They wouldn't see her again because she knew that she had gone too far to go back. Her suicide note, carefully thought out and at least several pages long (Not much of a note than a novel, really,) was waiting on her apartment door for anyone to find, her goodbyes had been said, and she had already brought herself to the roof of this building. In her mind, there was no turning back, because her not being able to follow through on killing herself would be one more thing she failed at.
She swallowed again, her throat dry and her eyes wet with tears. She shook as she clenched the railings. She looked to the sky again, seeing bright stars and a full moon shining down on her.
She had always loved the night.
So maybe it was better for Pearl to not tarnish her memory anymore and come back during the day, but that would mean people who would try to talk her out of it, or people who walked on and ignored her because she didn't matter enough to have an audience. Pearl stopped having an audience the moment she stopped being the center of her world.
Pearl pulled herself up the railing again, a cool breeze blowing behind her, almost as if the world itself was trying to make her do it. She licked her lips and resisted the urge to look down, as she knew it would discourage her yet again. She sat down on top of the railing this time, reaching blindly for the bottle and bringing it to her lips. As the liquid slid down her throat, she let out a mirthless chuckle.
"It's over, isn't it?" she said mockingly, because it was over: She had nothing. She wasn't hers anymore, she had no control over her own life, she was certain half of her friends hated her anyway, driven away by her constant gloominess, and she never did get along with her family. She licked her lips, throwing the bottle away and listening to it shatter in the distance. She stood up on the railings once more.
The numbness she had become acquainted with over the past few years had come back to her (It never really left), her mind was too fogged from the liquor to be able to dwell on her feelings anymore. She looked down again; the ground didn't stretch this time, it was a clear 40 Ft drop. If she was lucky, the smooth pavement down below would kill her instantly. (She didn't count on it, she deserved agony.) She looked up to the sky again and whispered her apologies; mostly to Amethyst and Garnet, the only two people that mattered to her. She found it funny that they were so close yet they never noticed that anything was wrong with her, or maybe they knew but they didn't want to help (She couldn't be helped at this state anyway.)
She decided that she had done enough stalling, and lifted a foot off the railing again, balancing on the other. She whispered her final goodbyes, and apologized again for good measure (As if they would forgive her). She licked her lips, and looked down. She felt fear well up once again, but she squelched it before it could bloom and convince her to go home. She lifted herself and balanced on her toes only.
…
…
…
She fell.