Chapter 4

"How do you want me to prove it?"

I heard my own voice asking, flat and devoid of warmth.

Chloe smirked, tossing out the cruelest answer with a laugh.

"Tear up that letter you wrote to the dead kid. That'll prove you aren't using it to manipulate him."

I looked at Ethan. His jaw was clenched tight.

He didn't utter a single word to stop her.

Yet on the night of that miscarriage, he had sobbed harder than I had.

He had held my hand as we wrote that letter together, pouring out our grief, saying how much we had looked forward to holding our baby, and how cruel the world was.

"Fine."

My eyes were swollen, a bitter, broken smile spreading across my face.

With my own hands, I shredded the only proof that my baby had ever existed into tiny, irreparable pieces, letting the scraps flutter to the floor.

"Now," I rasped through a raw, shredded throat, "can we break up?"

The night I walked out, Ethan went up to the rooftop again.

It was his one-hundredth time.

His best friend pounded on my new hotel door, bursting inside and screaming at me, "What the hell did you say to Ethan to make him want to jump again?!"

"Why aren't you up there talking him down?!"

He grabbed my arm roughly, trying to drag me out into the street.

He had already convicted me of Ethan's death, yet he still expected me to be the savior.

I wrenched myself violently from his grip, chest heaving.

"Go get Chloe to talk him down. They're the ones together, aren't they?"

My phone buzzed relentlessly.

It was Ethan's father.

The very man who had publicly cheered for Ethan to leave me on social media was now pleading on the other end of the line:

"Nora, Ethan only survived all these years because of you."

"You're a good girl. He's standing on that ledge for you right now. You have to go see him!"

My throat felt like it was tied in burning knots.

In the end, worn down by the sheer weight of obligation, I was dragged to the rooftop.

The wind up there was howling, freezing cold.

Ethan stood precariously on the narrow concrete railing. When he saw me step through the fire door, a relieved smile broke across his pale face.

"I knew you still cared."

"Get down from there," I said, looking at him, a dull ache throbbing in my chest despite everything. "Your family and friends are worried sick."

Ethan shook his head stubbornly.

"Promise me we'll stay together, and I'll step down."

This was only the second time I had ever seen Ethan cry over me.

The first time was when he held me tight in the hospital, swearing he would never harm himself over Chloe again.

He had broken that promise.

"You have no idea how terrified I was when you said you were leaving," Ethan spoke slowly, each word heavy and deliberate.

"I'll marry you."

My mind went blank for a second.

Ethan pressed on, his voice desperate:

"Let's get married. I'll take my therapy seriously, we'll cure this illness once and for all, and we'll build a real life. Just say yes, and I'll come down right now and hold you."

"Nora, I truly love you."

What a seductive, intoxicating lie. For a split second, I almost gave in.

Just then, Chloe burst through the rooftop door, panting heavily.

She screamed toward Ethan at the top of her lungs:

"Ethan, I'm pregnant!"

"You have to take responsibility for me and our baby!"