1 text message from: Zosia

"I'm on the roof. I'm going to jump."

Those eight words brought Jac's world to a halt. Her reality changed and her mindset shifted. The hustle and bustle of Darwin changed to nothing more than white noise. Shelves fell, nurses shouted and patients yelled as Jac made a beeline for the stairs. The soles of her shoes slammed against the worn steps of the seemingly neverending stairwell. Jac ran and ran, but she was afraid. Afraid she wasn't quick enough. At last, Jac was at the top and as she turned the handle on the door to the outside, she prayed to anyone that could listen that Zosia hadn't already gone.

She was at the edge, looking down. Looking down on a world in which no one seemed to care about her, too absorbed in their own lives to care about the loss of another one. 'Zosia.' Jac's voice trembled. Zosia was so close to the edge, and had so far to fall. 'Zosia.' Jac's cries meant nothing to Zosia. She could barely hear them as she thought of all the times she could make a change and she didn't, ways she could live her life differently, missed opportunities. Jac wept. 'Zosia!' she yelled, and Zosia's eyes snapped back to where she was, and terror gripped her. She couldn't move, but the wind was swaying her even further off the edge. 'Please. Get down. Come and talk to me, we'll sort whatever's going on out, I promise. Please!' Jac struggled to establish some form of control over the situation that was so quickly unfolding in front of her.

'I love you,' whispered Zosia, and with that, she stepped forward, swayed and fell down, down, down until she could fall no more. It occurred to Jac then that Zosia had never heard her say how much she loved her, cherished her, brightened up her life and made her enjoy living about her. How much she had meant to her, ever since the day they first met. All of those late nights, early mornings and everything in between spent together. But it was too late, and Zosia had died along with Jac's spirit, or what was left of it.

The consultant turned away, numb, and started the slow descent down to the ground floor.