Say you'll stay - Channing Tatum

P.9

"So, what are you going to do? Now, I mean." I turn my head to look at him.

He's watching every step he takes on the black concrete, studying the way the small grains of sand disappear behind us, only to be replaced by new ones.

"I have to talk to her. Say hi at least. " I can see his grin through the darkness. A smile can fool anyone, but he's not happy. Not even close. 

"That would probably be a good start." I smile wide. I can't help in any way at all. I don't know what to say or what to give for answers, even less what questions I can ask to avoid making the hole he's in deeper than what it already is.

I may be as drunk as he is, but the way he uses sarcasm in what he says is a way to prevent words meaning to get to him. He erases the hurtful in what's said by covering it in clouds.

I don't know him very well, especially given the fact that alcohol has been present both times we've talked, but he has a good heart, it's not hard to tell. He hasn't talked bad about her once, even through she probably has said both one and two things about him.

"Enough about me." He says, meeting my eyes for a second. "What do you do in life?"

"I work. That's what I do." I put a strand of hair behind my ear, lifting my bare foot from the ground to place it back, only on another place.

I let my gaze fall over the big metal construction over us. It reminds me of the Sydney Harbour bridge. I've only been there once, but I probably remember everything about it clearer than the people who drives over it every single day. I spent one whole night on it, dangling my feet over the dark water.

''I work, in a small coffee shop at the corner of melrose avenue." I smile.

I love it there. It sounds weird to say, even to think, that a small shitty work that barely pays enough is so easy to love. It's not really the work itself, it's everything around. The constant smell of coffee and the lovely old couples that come in to share a bagel at one of the small tables. It may not be much, but I wouldn't trade it for the world.

"I've never had a work like that." He says, looking out over the water. "Well, I was a stripper a few years back." He admits, laughing. The sound of his small happiness shines through for a second and I almost think he has forgotten about her.

"I know." I take the cap off my head and place it back on his before I stop.

"You know?" He chuckles and stops beside me.

We're at the middle of the bridge, the highest point. We're the furthest from the water we can get, but we're the closest to dying from it.

It has passed the usual darkness and we're now surrounded by only black and white. The only contrast to everything around us is the sky. I don't know how long we've been out here, how much time we've spent on this bridge, cause I'm drunk and has lost track of time. Is the sun on its way up or down?

I don't even know what I'm doing as I now grab the hard metal wires on the railing and place my bare foot on the fence. My gaze drifts down to the deep and so very dark water underneath me. It has a deep without ending but I somehow find it calming.

I'm not looking at the stars anymore, and I'm not listening to the crashing sound of the water against the concrete walls.

I'm wondering what it feels like to jump.

The moment before you actually hit the surface and stop breathing. When you're free falling. How does it feel?

"I think I will leave her." He breaks the silence.

I turn my head to look at him. He's resting his arms on the railing I'm standing on, staring out over the water that seems bottomless.

"Okay." Is the only thing I say, turning to look at the water again.

"If you leave someone to seek love from elsewhere, doesn't that mean that the love is gone at the first place?"

I'm not sure if he's looking for an answer. This night seems to be full of unanswered questions.

"I don't think so." I answer before I know I am. "I think love is something that's always there once it comes. It doesn't go and come back, or disappear. It just.. Holds on for its dear life. If not in the people themselves, then between them as a string that can't be cut."

I take a tighter grip around the wires, leaning out a little.

"You fall in love with a person for everything they are. Their flaws, their beauty; all the small parts that together build the entirety of the person. You can not choose to love fragments, because we're a whole. And that's what makes us, us, really. If you take away a flaw, you're maybe taking away the part of beauty someone else sees in you." I catch his eyes.

"The beauty is in the eye of the beholder. You've never heard of that?" I smile.

The gravity pulls me down and I lean more towards the water. A strong hand suddenly pulls my dress in the back, holding me in place on the railing.

"So I mean, even if the person changes, memories of how things used to be is still there, not even close to be gone.. cause that's yet another part of us."

He laughs from behind me. "You're crazy, you know that right?"

A smile forms my lips. "Do you find that a flaw or beauty?"

Our laughs fills the air.

I take one last glance at the water before I step down to the ground.

Unlike a drop of water which loses its identity when it joins the ocean, you don't lose yours when you join the society. We're all independent, made of different parts, but then that we are drawn to each other is just another thing to add to humanity.