On the top of the astronomy tower she lies.
The stars are gorgeous. They make her forget everything she runs away from. They make her feel alive. The sky is dark, pitch-black, and she sighs in the cold breeze. Everything is frozen, the wind ruffles her hair and caresses her skin. She looks for the last time at the moon, gazes at how full and beautiful and innocent it is. Its light illumines her eyes, bringing out the chocolate brown people would die for. Nothing stirs, nothing moves, everything is still and dead.
She doesn't look down, at the ground. She doesn't dare to. She knows what's coming. The moment where she'll lose it. When the final stage will come.
For now, she just smokes a last cigarette. She smiles at the smoke that arises from the burning leaves between her thin fingers, and her mind goes blank in a bliss she hasn't known for a long time. She touches the tip of her lips, feeling that last time she had felt someone's love on them. And she tries to remember every touch on her skin, every proof of love she's ever had.
She remembers too easily the bad memories, and she tries desperately to bring back the good ones, to relive them once more. As she closes her eyes, childhood fears overwhelm her, but she resists. All the courage it takes might kill her before time, but she has to remember.
And everything comes back, like a shot of adrenaline through her heart. Fast, unexpected, and it leaves her sick and confused. But she is already broken. Her eyes shoot open, and she must catch her breath.
She slowly looks down at her dress. Torn, stained with blood, she passed the tips of her fingers over the scars on her arms, and feels them in all their pain. The dress is ruined. The gorgeous dress she found in her wardrobe, and she refuses to think once more of the girl who bought it for her. In her head, red hair draws its lines before she pushes the person away from her mind. And she fights back every last person who tries to enter her head, coming back from an old memory she fights against.
Her hair falls in waves around her shoulders, the only part of her that remains untouched. Everything else has suffered from her eternal pain, from self-harm, from anger, from sadness and despair, but the hair stays to its initial state. Just so some part of her stays the same.
She smells the cold burning through her lungs, mixed with the tobacco and the shampoo of her hair. She can even smell the blood inked in the white fabric.
She tastes the cigarette. She tastes something metallic, and realized she's been biting her lip nervously, a habit she's been trying to let go of.
She closes her eyes to feel everything at the same time.
And this time, she is alive.
She gets up, opens her eyelids, and climbs on the ramp of the tower. The school she fell in love with, so young. She gazes one last time at the sky.
One foot in the air, she is ready to jump. She is ready to end everything that has brought her life into hell. She is ready to leave, once in for all, with no regrets. She is ready to jump. When she hears a noise behind her.
And she turns around in an instinct to flee, her eyes meeting those silver ones of a boy. He sees through her, directly into her soul, and she lets the tears fall onto her cheeks in a way of guilt. She stumbles, she falls.
The last thing she sees is the panic in his eyes, mixed with anger, frustration, pain and love, and a flash of his silky blond hair flowing in the wind.
In a last rush of madness she has jumped, and she squeezes her eyes shut to feel the fall. That's all she wants. To feel.
The boy rushes over to the side of the ramp, and shoots the first spell that comes to his mind. But he misses, and he hears her die, he hears her limp body hit the ground.
He decides it's better that way. He might not survive without her warmth in his bed the next morning, but he hopes her choice will bring her happiness.
But he feels her pain as if it has attacked her the moment she left, and he understands her decision. He cannot survive. He cannot fight the way she has, because he has no one to help him. Only her.
Just like that, he jumps to land next to her, his hand slightly touching hers in a last proof of eternity.
And they lay there forever.