CHAPTER ONE
Emma
I shiver when a brisk wind kicks up my skirt, the crimson fabric fluttering around my knees like the wings of a cardinal.
My mother hated red. She said it was the color whores wore.
She would know.
But I like it. Red’s full of energy and life, the color that symbolizes many things throughout various cultures and times—life and courage, anger and love. Passion.
I wrap my arms around myself to warm up, trying to be impervious to the biting wind.
“Happy now?” I ask her, my voice tinged with bitterness. “You got your way. I’m alone now. Just like you always wanted. Only now you’re not here to mock me anymore.”
Bitterness coats my tongue, even through the salt of tears. I swipe at them angrily. I vowed when I was fifteen years old I’d never shed another tear for her, but sometimes tears come when I don’t want them to.
I lift up my chin, defying the cold waterfront breeze to chill me. We’ve left winter behind, but the cool spring air hasn’t yet warmed, still holding on to the last vestiges of winter on the coast. A chilly wind whips over the water, pebbling my skin.
But I like the cold. I like the taste of the salty air, even as it turns my lips blue and I shiver. I like the raw boldness of it, the gusty bellow of a silent power that knows no bounds.
I step out further, the pointed, shiny tips of my shoes—death-defying heels I wore in honor of the occasion— edging toward the precipice.
Jump, a little voice in my mind tells me.
No one will miss you.
You won’t have to fight anymore.
Jump, and let the water wash it all away.
I stare at the blue-green waves laced in white, churning like a monster’s rage, boiling and simmering below as if defying the cold March air.
I laugh at the voice in my head.
Give up so soon? I taunt. Never.
I have a mission. A job to do. I’ve worked all my adult life to get here and won’t let one low moment push me into doing something stupid and reckless.
That’s not who I am.
I want wild, though. I want to do something that doesn’t follow the rules, that doesn’t make sense. Something... bold.
I don’t know how long I stand there, but the sun sinks from eye level to barely noticeable, nothing more than a splash of fading orange on the horizon. And with the setting sun, a deeper cold sets in.
My stomach churns with hunger. I don’t remember the last time I ate. I didn’t skip food because of grief. No, grief was the bitter herb I tasted a full decade ago. I’m beyond caring at this point. The tears aren’t tears of regret but of anger, though why I’m angry, I couldn’t say.
I’ve got a ways to walk, but I chose it this way. I wanted to be alone. I craved being alone. Sometimes, walking alone’s the one thing that clears my mind.
My mother made it easy. Hardly anyone came to her funeral anyway, save a harried-looking woman wearing a too-tight dress and scuffed flats. She didn’t look at me. She didn’t talk to me. She dropped a wilting rose on my mother’s dead body, then left with her head hung low.
And I didn’t care. I still don’t.
Ah, that’s right. I ate two mints from the little glass bowl in the waiting room. A meal for an ant, not someone like me. Fuck it, I’m starving.
Another brisk wind makes me shiver again. My legs wobble on the edge of the cliff. I’m in danger, and I know it, but I crave the bolt of adrenaline that courses through me when I look over the cliff’s edge. It helps make the little voice in my mind that coaxes me to jump to fade a little.
I listen to the waves. I close my eyes, my arms spread out wide to stay balanced. They say it’s harder to remain still with your eyes closed. My lips tip up in a grin.
I didn’t get to where I am by being reckless and dangerous, but damn if it doesn’t exhilarate me.
I focus on the details around me. It centers me somehow.
I’ve never really known how it works with me… I’m not like other people. When I was younger, I didn’t know enough to pretend I was ordinary, but learning to feign mediocrity’s a skill one learns with age.
When I was little, I pretended I had superpowers. I almost fooled some of my friends. The power of observation when others are blind to details does seem almost supernatural.
Not everyone could tell you that the sun sets today at precisely 5:38 p.m., that tonight we have a full moon, that there are three cars parked in the nearly barren parking lot below the cliff, that there used to be an ice cream shack there, and maybe it returns when the weather warms up.