Twelve Feet Deep

I was on a roof. Chris was throwing a party (What else is new?) and somehow, during its peak, I ended up alone on the roof of his house. I remember the stars being brighter than I’d ever seen them over that Chicago suburb. I could see the Big Dipper right across from Orion’s Belt and I swear it almost sucked me in.

I wasn’t drunk and I wasn’t on my meds, either. Maybe that’s why I was sitting there with my back against the attic window, staring at the starless patches in the sky, wondering what it would feel like to disappear into a black hole. There had to be other inhabited universes besides our own. How lonely would it be if we were the only sentient beings in this gas-filled vacuum?

And then I saw her.

I didn’t even hear her open the window or step out onto the roof. I just blinked and suddenly she was standing there, staring down at the usual crowd of misfits loitering on Chris’s driveway, getting shitfaced. My heart sped up in an instant, and in retrospect, I’m still not sure if it was because of her unexpected presence or an instinct my body naturally picked up on, as if to warn me: This girl will fuck you up and leave you reeling, and you won’t have any control over it.

I wouldn’t have listened anyway.

Her back was toward me and the first thing I noticed were the two indentations just above the base of her spine. I found myself simultaneously trying to remember what they were called and imagining myself pressing my thumbs into them as I bent her over and fucked her from behind. The latter thought had me watching her sheepishly from then on, like she knew what had just crossed my mind and was now reveling in it, about to use it to her advantage.

“There’s comfort in the bottom of a swimming pool,” her voice just barely rang out above the chatter of the party below us. She sounded like an angel with a nicotine addiction. Then I remembered.

“Dimples of Venus,” I blurted out. That’s what they were called. I immediately felt like an idiot not just for accidentally announcing such a random piece of information, but because of her reaction to it.

She twisted her head around slowly to look at me, her body still turned away. She wore a smirk that made me sink and recoil. It was unheard of; me, introverted? Intimidated by a girl I’d never met before? That was a joke for the ages. But she did it. That smug smile told me she knew what I was thinking. She knew.

It was then that I actually took in her appearance, which could only be described with one word: confused. She looked like she had just come back from a jog. Her hair was up and she was clad in a black sports bra, matching shorts and Converse, but then she was also wearing that Fuck Me red lipstick; you know the shade. The color that looks like blood and begs for you to ravage her. Confused.

I wanted her to stare at me forever, but she turned away and started walking towards the edge of the roof. I furrowed my brows and watched her carefully, feeling nervousness start to course through me.

“I can see my house from here,” she mused. I could hear the smile in her voice. I didn’t know what she was talking about; I could only see Andy’s house at the end of the cul-de-sac. Her vision must’ve been fucking spectacular.

She was really starting to make me uneasy with the way she just nonchalantly went forward, peering down below us. I deliberately stood up from my spot against the window, praying she wouldn’t go any further. She was toeing the gutter.

“Hey…” I warned her as I took careful steps, “Don’t get too close to the edge. You don’t wanna fall.”

She was facing away from me again, but I could just picture her expression: Or do I?

“Yeah,” she breathed, “It’s a long way down from here.”

And then I blinked, and she was gone.

Out of all the times I faced death, I never felt my heart stop and tense up like it did in that moment. I abandoned all rationale, all painstaking precautions as I ran over to where she’d stood just seconds before she jumped.

A million scenarios flashed through my mind; funerals, wakes, friends crying on each others’ shoulders, having my guilt ridden conscience eat me alive—until I was awoken out of my feverish stupor with a splash.

I’d completely forgotten Chris had a pool.

Still, I didn’t let out the breath stuck in my throat until I heard her laugh surface along with everyone’s cheers. Holy shit, did you see that? Did she jump from the fucking roof?

I lay there on my stomach, clutching the edge as my heart hammered on the shingles. Everyone was jumping in the pool now, entirely clothed and without a single care. I just stared at her, wide-eyed as she grinned at me from the water and pushed her soaking hair out of her face.

I still don’t know if she was attempting to kill herself or just trying to get my attention.