ONE LESS PERSON

The wind whipped through his trimmed hair as he stood precariously at the ledge, the dizzying height making his stomach churn nervously. He suppressed something which was travelling up his oesophagus. He peered over the edge, his heart racing as he stared down at the bustling street so far below with a sense of trepidation. The cars looked like tiny toys, their headlights blinking in the growing twilight.

Giovanni hugged himself tightly, trying to push away the sick feeling that had settled in the pit of his stomach. While blinking against the cold breeze which stung his eyes from being this high above the ground, he could not help but wonder how it had come to this. How had his life spiralled so far out of control that he found himself contemplating taking his life in such a drastic, irrevocable way?

As he teetered on the edge, the ground beneath his feet began to crumble, sending a shiver of terror down his spine. With a sudden jolt, he lurched backwards and desperately tried to maintain his footing. Gasping for breath, he stumbled away from the brink, his chest heaving with fear and adrenaline. In that fleeting moment, a powerful surge of the will to live coursed through him, a primal instinct for self-preservation.

However, it was quickly overshadowed by the familiar anguish that had driven him to this precarious precipice—a relentless despair that seemed to crush all hope.

Glancing down at the bottle of pills in his hands, he contemplated what to do with them. He would not need them anymore once he was put in the dirt. Numbly, he opened his palm and let the bottle drop out of his hand. It whizzed through the air, springing on the ground.

Steeling himself, he crept back to the edge, peering once more into the abyss. Just one step, he thought. One step and it would be all over. No more pain, no more suffering. Sweet, final oblivion.

With a heart pounding in his chest, he extended his hand, feeling the rough texture of the cold, unyielding concrete against his trembling fingertips. This was it. The moment of truth. The juncture where his fate would be decided. Tears welled up in his eyes, distorting his vision as he braced himself to take the leap, ready to succumb to the merciless pull of gravity.

Just as he was about to let go, the distinct sound of footsteps drew nearer from behind, interrupting his solitary resolve.

With his back still turned to the intruder, he announced out loud, "There is no use trying to talk me out of this." 

"Fucking hell," the newcomer muttered in fright.

"Going to end up jumping either way," he added.

The unknown person remained quiet for a moment as his chest moved up and down from his deep breathing. With a bemused frown in her tone, she asked, "What are you talking about?"

Even though her voice sounded familiar to him, he remained faced away from her and reiterated, "I said, there is no use trying to talk me out of this."

"Uh…" With a bit of confusion in her drawled out murmur, she asked, "Whoever said I'm here to stop you?"

With his eyebrows twitching in confusion, he finally turned around to face her. "What?"

Why did she just say that to him? Like she was encouraging him to jump.

"If I had the guts, I might have just thrown myself over after you had a go at it."

What?

As the moonlight reflected off her face, he suddenly recognised who she was. He knew her voice sounded incredibly familiar. He distinctly recalled their encounter earlier in the week at the local restaurant near his home. She and her familiar joined them when his father dropped him and his mother off there before heading to church to prepare for his sermon.

"Hey," he began slowly and then he added, "Rhay."

It was silent after he said that and he could see her eyes squinting at him.

"Do I know you?"

"Considering I'm your cousin, I would hope you'd know me."

"Oh hey, Gino." Abruptly, she demanded whilst waving her hand for him to move forward, "Can you maybe move away from the edge of the building while talking to me because it would be really inconvenient for us both if you like… got cut off in the middle of your sentence?"

His lips arched up slightly, eyes shining in amusement.

"I will if you stop hiding in the shadows."

Reluctantly, she stepped forward so that the sliver of light emitting from the moon could illuminate her face. His eyebrows drew down to stare at her in concern when he caught the bruise underneath her eyes and her split lip.

How did she get that? After blinking his shock away, without a word, he quickly jumped down from the edge of the building. When he moved closer to her with a grave expression on his face, she hugged herself tightly as if to force herself not to turn around and dash away from him. Her gaze wavered nervously.

"What happened?" he asked quietly, leaning in to check the damage.

She hesitated, her eyes darting around once more before she finally spoke. "I ran into a wall." Her ears started heating up and she pursed her lips indignantly, pulling out a case of rolled up blunts from her pocket.

"Right." He nodded unconvinced.

He studied her face after the elongating silence, but her expression did not change. His jaw tightened, his knuckles turning white as he clenched his fists under the table. "I swear, I'll fucking kill that bastard, Rhayader."

"You'll only make it worse for me and my mother, Gino." 

Even though there was a pleading in her tone, her expression remained blank. Nothing ever seemed to faze her. She was the type of person who was able to hide all her emotions from the rest of the world. The type who wore a mask on her face and showed people what she thought they wanted to see.

His expression softened as she tried to avoid his gaze. Slowly, he unclenched his fists.

Out of courtesy, she asked him, "What are you doing here?"

He looked at her like she was stupid for asking him that.

"Oh right, committing suicide."

"Some people like to kill themselves slowly," he looked at her blunts packed in the case pointedly and she frowned at him unimpressed, "and others like a quick, untimely death. Not saying that any other death is a timely death or anything, but… you get my point."

"Right."

Swiftly, he changed the topic by asking her, "What were you saying about jumping after me?"

"That was a joke."

"Dark humour." His lips twitched into yet another visible grin. "You are exactly the sort of person I need to be around then."

"And you are the sort of person I want out of my spot. Do you have any idea how disrespectful it is for you to choose this specific spot to commit your deed? If the police shut this place down after your death, I would need to find another place to smoke."

"You want lung cancer that bad, huh?"

She raised one eyebrow expectantly, waiting for him to leave. When he did not immediately move around her, she shook her head and rolled her eyes in exasperation, then settled herself on the ground, leaning against the edge where he had been standing. As she reached for one of her blunts and lit it, he watched her with curiosity. When had she started smoking?

Glancing up at him through her eyelashes, she shrugged, letting her long black hair fall over her shoulder. "What?"

He sat down beside her. "You do know that weed is illegal in Australia, right?"

"What, ah nam?"

"Ah-what-now?"

"Are you gonna snitch on me?"

She inhaled the smoke into her mouth and just held it there, before purposefully breathing out into his face. It burned his eyes. He wrinkled his nose at the skunk stench.

As she was about to bring the blunt back to her lips, he quickly reached for it and took it away from her. She looked up at him with a puzzled expression, her narrowed eyes conveying a daring warning not to discard her possession. Unbeknownst to her, he recognised that disposing of the blunt might ultimately benefit her health. Instead of simply throwing it away, he chose to hold her gaze, leaning in closer with a mischievous glint in his eyes.

"Are you?" he mused before taking a drag of her blunt before he keeled over with a fit of coughs. "That is rank as hell." Cough. "Why the hell—" Cough "—would anyone—" Cough "—subject themselves to that?"

She burst out laughing after watching him tearing up from just one drag of weed.

His hand slowly rose to massage his throat, a slight tension evident in his movements. As he exhaled, the smoke billowed from his mouth in large, huffing clouds that engulfed her. Her laughter rang out into the bustling city, mingling with the cacophony of urban sounds. When she glanced back at him, she tried to purse her lips when she noticed the intense glare in his eyes.

"I am glad you find amusement in my suffering."

"You tried to look so sick. Have you never smoked before?"

"Do I look like I have smoked?"

"You're right, Auntie would kill you if you ever did."

He quickly gave her blunt back with a deep frown on his face. "Fucking hell, my chest hurts."

"You get used to it after the first few times." She pulled her inhaler out and quickly took a large breath into her lungs. He stared at her incredulously at her actions. "What?"

"First of all, when the fuck did you get an inhaler?" he exclaimed, waving his hand at the pump in her hand which she quickly placed back in her pocket. "Second of all, you have… what? Asthma… Bronchitis…"

"Asthma."

"And you're doing that?"

She shrugged indifferently. "It helps me relax."

"From what?"

She did not answer him.

When she looked up at him, she saw him arching his brow. "I'm waiting."

"And you shall keep waiting," she responded with a plastic smile curling onto her mouth, blinking up at him guilelessly. "Does your mum know that you're out so late at night?"

"I'll tell you if you tell me why you need to relax so bad."

Their eyes locked in a silent exchange that seemed to stretch on for an eternity, the air thick with unspoken tension. After what felt like an eternity, she finally averted her gaze from the inscrutable glimmer in his eyes. Moving slowly, she brought her hand up to her lips, taking a deliberate drag from the half smoked blunt clenched between her fingers, orange embers flickering down from the end of the bud.

As she inhaled, the smoke swirled within her mouth, suspended for a brief moment before she released it into the air. He could not understand how despite her asthma, she would not choose to resist this habit.

"I gotta say, I do not like the secrets between us, cuz."

She did not even regard his statement and she mused casually, "You still want to kill yourself?"

"The world would be a much better place with one less person to worry about." He smiled at her sarcastically. "Why do you want to kill yourself?"

"Who said I want to kill myself?"

"Now that is just unfair," he said with a feigned indignant look on his face. "I hang my balls out for you to see clear as day and you will not even do the same. Such a fucking tease, Rhayader."

"You're so fucking gay."

"I'm not gay, I'm bisexual."

"Yeah, if you want to get pedantic about it," she muttered with a small curvature of her lips. "Either way, you suck cock."

He could not help but let an amused snort escape him, as she inhaled another drag into her mouth, allowing a long swirl to curl up into the air, reaching for the heavens above.

Feeling a gaze on him, he turned around to meet the piercing green eyes of a familiar black cat. It sat perched on the roof, tail swishing back and forth as it observed him with an almost uncanny intelligence. When it tilted its head to the side, he narrowed his eyes, studying the feline for a moment. The cat merely blinked, unperturbed by his searching gaze.

Creepy...

The cat's lips curled into what almost resembled a smile before dismissively turning away from him.