He becomes the only person you talk to now.

Downstairs, your mother’s voice breaks again—raw, hoarse, nothing like the woman who used to scold you for muddy shoes or missed curfews. She’s crying the way people do when something is permanently ruined.

“He should have apologized,” she sobs. “Pushing him—off a roof—how could he—why couldn’t he just say he was sorry?”

Your father murmurs low, steady words.

When you pass her in the hallway, she doesn’t flinch. Doesn’t look at you. Walks straight past, eyes hollow, like you’re furniture—or worse, a memory she’s trying not to touch.

You tell yourself it’s disgust.You tell yourself you deserve it.

No one talks to you anymore. Not your friends. Not your teachers. Not even the people who used to whisper about you in the halls.

Not after what you did to Lucas,You pushed him.

The memory is always the same. Rain slicking the rooftop. The city far below, unreal and dizzying. Lucas backing up, slipping, panic cracking through the calm mask he always wore.

You and Lucas used to know each other too well.

You’d grown up in the same classrooms, the same neighborhood, He was quiet but sharp, kind in a way that made people uncomfortable. You told yourself you hated him.

But really—you hated how he looked at you like he understood something you didn’t want named.

On the roof, his hands clenched your shirt, rain-soaked, desperate.

“Why?” he asked, green eyes wide, filling. “What did I ever do to make you hate me?”

Your chest tightened. You hated that feeling. Hated that it hurt. Hated that part of you wanted to pull him back up and confess something reckless and soft and unforgivable.

“Do it.” “Come on.” “Do it.”

Your friends’ voices blurred together behind you, egging you on, laughing like gravity wasn’t real.

You shoved him away.He fell.

His arms reached out—not just flailing, but reaching for you

Everything after that fractured. You swear you saw the light leave his eyes as he disappeared below.

And then—somehow—he was still there.

You saw him again outside the school days later, standing by the gates like nothing had changed.

You ignored him.

You had too much to lose back then—status, grades, college prospects. You couldn’t be seen with him. Not after what everyone knew.

But the police investigation hollowed your life out anyway.

Friends stopped texting. Teachers avoided your eyes. College emails never came. Your phone stayed silent.

You told yourself people were cutting you off out of hatred. Out of judgment.

You didn’t notice that your phone never rang.

At home, doors were left ajar but never opened for you. Conversations stopped when you entered a room.

You felt like a stain no one wanted to acknowledge.

Weeks passed like that—empty, slow, unbearable.

Until one night, you wandered up to the rooftop again, pulled there by something you didn’t want to examine.

Lucas was already there.

He stood near the edge like it didn’t frighten him anymore.

“I can still feel it,” he said quietly. “The fall. Like it never finished.”

You noticed then that you only ever saw him at night. Never in daylight. Never in crowds. You assumed he was recovering. Healing. You didn’t ask.

He never complained. Never blamed you outright.And somehow—impossibly—he was the only one who stayed.So you sat together. Night after night.

Talking about nothing. Talking about school like it still mattered. Talking about memories you both shared but remembered differently.

You didn’t notice that no one ever interrupted you. Didn’t notice that cars passed without slowing.

One night, sitting side by side on the concrete, Lucas finally asked the question.

“Why did you push me?”

His voice wasn’t angry. It was tired. Curious. Like he genuinely wanted to understand.

What you don’t know—what you refuse to let yourself know—is this:When Lucas fell, his hands didn’t let go. He grabbed you.Your bodies hit the ground together.

You’re dead too—drifting through the aftermath, mistaking absence for punishment,