Know that I touched one of them.
My heart is beating a mile a minute now, my fingers sweating in my gloves. This is exciting again. Now I need to figure out how to get one of them close enough to me to be able to slip it into their jacket pocket. Turning to the women next to me, I get their attention, "Do you know what happened?"
Sniffling, one of them looks over at me, shaking her head. "Some girl just jumped. I don't think we know her, but Mia said she has red hair like our friend Sarah who also lives in the building."
Well, it definitely isn't Sarah, but I'm not going to reassure them of that. "I know Sarah, wasn't she having relationship issues?" I have no idea if she was or not, but considering most college women are, I figured it was a good shot at getting these two worked up.
One of them gasps, both of their eyes going wide. Bingo. "Oh, my God! You don't think she would have jumped, do you? I thought she and Steven made up?!"
I just shrug, shaking my head as I look back out at my butterfly, now covered with a silver blanket to keep her out of sight. "I don't know. She was pretty broken up over something when I talked to her."
They both start crying again, one of them leaning from her friend’s grip to yell toward the police. "Sarah! I need to see if that's Sarah!" She pulls from her friend, hand reaching out to grab the yellow tape in front of us. "Please, I need to see if it's her!"
One of the officers breaks from their huddle, jogging our way to stop the woman from dipping under the tape. "Ma'am, we know you're concerned, but we need you to stay on the other side of the tape."
"No, I need to see if that's my friend; her name is Sarah. I need to see if that's her." She tries to fight from his grip, and I pull my hands from my pockets. Stepping forward, I grab her arm in an act of trying to keep her back. Before pulling her away, I slip my little butterfly into his unzipped jacket pocket. I keep my face sideways as I talk to her, profile to the officer as I keep her back. "You'll find out, but you can't go in there. If it is her, you wouldn't want to see her like that anyway."
She lets me pull her back, and her friend grabs her arm once more, cooing to her things I can't hear but also don't care to. I've accomplished what I needed. Turning from them, I walk back down the street. My heart is still pumping from the adrenaline of doing something so risky, but I can't deny how exciting that was. Too exciting. If I'm not careful, I'll walk myself right into getting caught just for a fucking thrill.