Everything you do determines who you are.
And so does everything you don't do.
She finally reached it. She finally reached the one place that she was always able to come to.
There she finally was.
The very top of the building.
The moment the elevator door opened, Riley was struck by the lack of natural light from outside.
What she saw in front of her was a bright sky. And a long hall, that led to something that seemed to be outside.
This is what she decided to do.
She stepped outside the elevator, and made her first step inside the hall.
It wasn't all too necessary to her to get out there the soonest she could. Quite the contrary - she was trying to put that off for every tangible second possible.
One step every few seconds... another step after a few more seconds...
And another one...
Very slowly, but even more surely, the end of the hall was getting closer and closer...
...
...
No thoughts.
Just the steps.
...
...
The last step.
And after the last handful of seconds, she managed to take the last step.
And she was outside.
Riley's dad was dead.
Above her, the incomparably bright, dark blue, sky.
In front of her, the vehemently distant horizon.
Below her... one pile of buildings after another pile of buildings.
One strain of vehicles just driving around, after another such pile.
One group of people after another group.
One life after another.
One difficult, unbearable, uncomfortable life - but not unsolvable - after another.
Riley looked down at those ever so miniature people. She could not believe how every single one of those people were even able, let alone willing, to just walk around, repeat the same routine every single day, and not get tired of it all, as though there was nothing horrible going on in their lives.
That's an enormous lie.
She could believe that very easily.
She just didn't want to admit it to herself.
Eileen was expelled.
It wasn't any one particular moment from the past two days that went on to occupy Riley's, no longer so heavy, mind.
It was all those moments that flooded it at once.
She was about to proceed wondering how she could let this all happen to her.
But she knew the answer.
There were a lot more answers that she, just out of nowhere, felt like she already knew.
She looked at each of the directions in which the road just below her led.
There was so much more to do at the ends of that road...
And at the ends of many, many other roads...
None of which would be for her.
Jean got kicked out of the hockey team.
Long enough did Riley's observation of the uncomfortably thriving world below her last - that the sky was beginning to get lighter.
The Sun was coming out soon.
The hours were already going towards the morning.
In a really weird and obtuse way, she saw that notion as a positive one.
Even if her life was shattered into too many pieces, and turned out to be for nothing...
At least this one moment of it wouldn't be.
As she looked over the edge of the building's highest point, her eyes faced down, to the ground.
The ground which was so many dozens of floors below her.
She just kept inhaling and exhaling...
Inhaling and exhaling...
Inhaling and exhaling...
...
She was meant to accomplish so much more.
She was meant to become a renowned hockey player, with one trophy after another.
She was meant to graduate effortlessly.
She was meant to make her parents feel like the proudest ones in the world.
It's never gonna happen.
Every chance to make all those things happen... is now gone. Forever.
...
Riley Andersen took one last look at the ground that was far, far below her.
She saw so many people all the way down there.
She wished they would all live a good life.
She closed her eyes...
You wouldn't want the realization... that you can actually turn your life around very easily... to come just too late... would you?
THE END