Chapter 8: To Contemplate
About twelve hours after Wendall died, Susan's pager went off as she was on her way home. She made a U turn and headed back to the ER. "What happened?" she asks groggily as she makes her way into the ER.
"Go up on the roof and check," Dr. Chen tells her. Susan wonders what she could mean by that, and decides to go see for herself.
She presses the elevator door and steps in. She presses the button to go to the roof and the elevator brings her up there. The door opens and she steps out. On the side of the ledge is Jake, looking over. "Jake!" she yells. Jake turns around. "What are you doing?" she asks.
"Contemplating," he says, plain and simple.
"Whether to jump?"
"Yeah."
"Why?"
"I figured if Abby could do it, so could I."
"Commit suicide? Jake, why don't we go downstairs and talk about this."
"No, I can't stand to be without her. If I jump, I might have a chance to see her again."
"Jake-" she starts to protest, but before she can say anything else, Jake is gone and falling down towards the hard cement ground. "No!" she screams, as she looks down, and then runs towards the elevator. She pushes the down button frantically until finally the elevator doors open.
Susan runs out of the elevator and outside to where Jake jumped. She rushes over to his limp body and checks his pulse. There's nothing, and he's not breathing. "Jake, no you're not dead, please wake up," she says, shaking him a little bit while tears form and slip down her face.