Jane Lark - I Found You

Her hands moved, catching hold of the wire like she was going to climb it, then her foot lifted, seeking a grip on the railing.

Her arms bracing her weight; her other foot lifted. What the hell was she doing? Trying to go over the wire? Did she want to jump?

“Hey! Wait!”

I ran harder.

Fuck. She looked serious and she carried on climbing, searching out hand and foot holds.

“Are you crazy? Stop it!”

As I ran the last few yards her gaze finally turned to me. I covered the distance in moments, watching her clinging on the wire, Spiderman style.

God knows what she saw in my eyes. I could see nothing in hers except maybe fear. They were huge, and dark, staring at me like I was the weird one.

I wasn’t the weird one.

My music continued playing muted sounds and air rasped into my lungs as I stopped. I lifted a hand, palm up, offering to help her down. “Come on…” My breath fogged the air around us. “Nothing’s that bad…”

She held still. Her eyes had no depth. It was like looking into mirrors, reflecting back the electric light. She looked a little mad.

“Let me help you.”

She was panting as hard as I was. She didn’t come down.

She was only a couple of feet off the floor, I could pull her down, but I didn’t want to scare her.

My fingers instinctively lifted and touched her lower back. I could feel the breath pulling into her lungs. “Look, seriously, you don’t want to do anything foolish.”

She didn’t move.

“What’s your name?” Shit. My heart was still racing like I was running. I looked along the bridge path, but there was no one else here to help.

“Honey, come on down. I can’t let you do it.”

She was just staring at me.

What the hell did cops say to persuade a person… “You must be cold, you can have my hoodie. I’m not going to leave you here.”

This was like some TV drama.

My hands were trembling from the blood burning in my muscles. I’d gone from running hard to standing still. A weight of responsibility fell on me suddenly. This girl’s life was in my hands. I’d been running wrapped up in my own world and now… Shit. “Really. Please… Come down.”

Pleading obviously touched some nerve in her, as one foot came back down onto the concrete, her cotton t-shirt catching on my glove and crumpling up, revealing the pale skin of her lower back. My gaze dropped to her plain white sneakers, as the next foot touched the ground.

Relief washed through me on a wave as I lifted my hand so her t-shirt slid back down. I looked up and met her gaze. It was still blank though, and her fingers gripped the wire.

I touched her shoulder. It lifted as air pulled into her lungs, before slipping back out. I didn’t know why I was touching her, but I just… I needed to know she was okay. She didn’t seem to know where she was, or what she’d been doing.

A dark smear marked her face, and whatever it was, it stained her hair too.

Every sermon I’d endured as a kid raced through my head. Help the needy; put others first; don’t walk past that mugged guy in the street. I hadn’t gone to church for years, not since I’d hit my teens, but religion was stitched into my DNA. No way could I walk past a person in need.

My shock dissipating, I stripped off my hoodie. The smell of my sweat permeated the cold air. She probably wouldn’t want it but she needed it. “How long have you been up here? It’s freezing.” She could have been up here half an hour. She hadn’t been here when I’d run over the bridge into Manhattan.

For a minute I didn’t think she’d take it, but then her hand reached out. “I don’t know?”

“You know it’s twenty-one degrees Fahrenheit, right? You’ll get hyperthermia.” She looked at me, her eyes still dead. “I’m Jason… Were you trying to do what I thought?”

She didn’t answer.

I held out my hand. “Hi.”

She didn’t shake my hand, just looked at it.

“Look, nothing can be that bad. You’ll get over it, and be glad you didn’t jump.”

“Will I?” Her pitch was mocking, although maybe she was mocking her own thoughts, not my words, nothing in her eyes or her face told me though.

What now? I could hardly just run on and leave her here. Dammit. “I…” I could take her to emergency… What would they do? Check her over and spit her out. “Have you got any family locally?”

“No.”

“Friends?”

“No.”

Her large eyes confirmed what she’d said. She had nowhere to go. Her full lips pouted a little. Shit. What did I do?

“Where do you live then? Is there somewhere I can take you?”

She was pretty. Her face glowed in the electric light, showing a clear complexion and perfectly even features, though her skin was yellowish in this light.

“No. Nowhere.”

Why was she here? What had made her life too hard to carry on?

She shivered, and pain etched its expression on her face, then tears suddenly glittered in her eyes, and the coldness in them became a lake of desolation. “I need to get away.”

“From what?”

She didn’t answer, but her teeth started chattering. I lifted the hood of my sweatshirt over her blonde hair.

“Look, obviously things aren’t okay for you. What are you going to do?”

“I don’t know.”

I took a breath, looking at her and hoping some magical solution would suddenly hit me. It didn’t, and I was getting cold now.

She shivered again and her arms crossed, her hands gripping the opposite elbows. She’d stopped looking at me. She was looking at the sky, like she was searching for answers too.

I sighed, my fingers running over my hair. She was nearly as tall as me, and I was six foot one. She must be at least five eight. But she was slender, like a model. My sweatshirt swamped her figure. She looked fragile.

Shit. There was nothing I could do. “What are you going to do, if I go?”

Her shoulders lifted in a shrug, but she didn’t look down.

My heart was thumping to the same rhythm as the bass beat now pounding out of the earphones dangling ‘round my neck

I couldn’t leave her out here…

“Have you really got nowhere to go?”

She shook her head, making her blonde ponytail sweep over her back.

Shit. What option did I have? What option did she have?

“Have you got any money?”

Her head shook again. But her stillness, apart from her shaking head, made me feel like she didn’t even care. I felt stupid then, of course she didn’t care. She’d just tried to end her life by throwing herself off a bridge. She obviously didn’t care about anything right now.

What to do with her? I could give her money… But I’d have to go back to my apartment to get my card and take her to a cash dispenser. And what would she do with it? Maybe she’d already taken something. Drugs or drink. Maybe that was why she was so dead looking. I’d be stupid to give her money.

I sighed again. I could call the cops and take her to a station. But what would they care? I found this girl and she’s got nowhere to stay . They’d say, yeah, right, join the line of a couple of hundred other homeless people in New York.

There wasn’t any choice. “I could take you home with me, if you’ve got nowhere to go. Just for tonight. It would give you chance to get your head straight, and get warm. If you want?”

“I … ” She looked at me again then, her eyes losing their depth once more and setting up shutters, locking me out.

“What do you think?” I got another shrug, but her eyes suddenly filled with depth, letting me see into the thoughts behind her gaze. They were asking me questions.

“What are you going to do if you don’t come back with me?” Another shrug. “Have you got any other options?” She shook her head, her ponytail swaying, but her gaze was clinging to mine now, like was she was considering me. Maybe she was trying to judge if she’d be safe.