“I don’t get it. Are you in that same chat?” He was fishing for answers, looking for anything that would help her loosen up.
“Lots of them,” she said. “Sometimes it really helps.”
“It does really help sometimes,” he said, very careful with his wording, not wanting to send her off in the wrong direction. “But sometimes it doesn’t help.”
“No, of course not,” she said. “Nobody has the answers. Nobody can make that decision for you.”
“Did anybody ever email you?”
She turned slowly, and, with her voice hard, she said, “Was it you?”
“No,” he said immediately, “it’s not me.”
“Then how do you know about an email?” she asked, her voice turning ugly, as she glared at him. “You said it would be over if I did this. You said it would be finished.”
“That’s not true. It wasn’t me.” But she didn’t believe him. He saw it in her eyes.
“I don’t know,” she said, and this time instead of going over, she backed away. “You told me that it would be finished and that nobody would know.”
“I didn’t tell you anything,”
“Are you going back on your word?” she cried out.
In her confusion, she now thought that he was going back on whatever it was that this stupid email writer had said to her.
“Listen. I work with the police,” he said, not even realizing what he’d said, until she froze and stared at him. “It’s true,” he said. “We know that somebody is trying to convince people to jump off the bridge.”
She looked at him, her gaze going around her. “Other people?”
And that’s when his heart broke, and he whispered, “Yes, sweetie, other people and you.”
She shook her head. “You can only know that if you know what’s in the email.”
“I don’t know what’s in your email, but I know somebody else who jumped a few days ago, a friend of mine,” he said, his hand going to his heart. “He left behind a wife who loved him dearly, but, for whatever reason, he believed that her life would be better if he did this.”
“But that’s what they say, isn’t it?” she said, sounding broken again.
But such distrust was in her voice, in her face, he knew he had to be beyond careful. “I get it,” he said quietly. “I really do, but this guy isn’t trying to help you. It’s his own perverse sense of satisfaction and making people do what he wants them to do. He’s a puppeteer, and he’s pulling your strings.”
“I know,” she said. “I’ve known that all along. But I can’t stop him.”
“What do you mean, you can’t stop him?”
She shook her head. “You really don’t know. You’re just fishing.”
“Help me to understand,” he said quietly. “Please.”
She shook her head. “I can’t.” She suddenly moved to the bridge, her hands on the railing.
“Dear God, please don’t jump.”
She looked at him. “Why do you care?” she asked in bewilderment. “Why do you even care?”
“I do care,” he said. “I care a lot.”
“But why? What difference does it make?”
“You know what? I’ve had some things in life that were pretty shitty too,” he said. “I’ve had some reasons to want to take that short walk off a bridge myself,” he said, “but I haven’t yet.”