It Ends with Us

beautiful
. Well-manicured, smells like money, looks to be
several years older than me. His eyes crinkle in the corners as they follow
me, and his lips seem to frown, even when they aren’t. When I reach the
side of the building that overlooks the street, I lean forward and stare
down at the cars below, trying not to appear impressed by him. I can tell
by his haircut alone that he’s the kind of man people are easily impressed
by, and I refuse to feed into his ego. Not that he’s done anything to make
me think he even 
has
one. But he is wearing a casual Burberry shirt, and
I’m not sure I’ve ever been on the radar of someone who could casually
afford one.
I hear footsteps approaching from behind, and then he leans against
the railing next to me. Out of the corner of my eye, I watch as he takes
another hit of his joint. When he’s finished, he offers it to me, but I wave it
off. The last thing I need is to be under the influence around this guy. His
voice is a drug in itself. I kind of want to hear it again, so I throw a
question in his direction.
“So what did that chair do to make you so angry?”
He looks at me. Like 
really
looks at me. His eyes meet mine and he just
stares, hard, like all my secrets are right there on my face. I’ve never seen
eyes as dark as his. Maybe I have, but they seem darker when they’re
attached to such an intimidating presence. He doesn’t answer my
question, but my curiosity isn’t easily put to rest. If he’s going to force me
down from a very peaceful, comfortable ledge, then I expect him to
entertain me with answers to my nosy questions.
“Was it a woman?” I inquire. “Did she break your heart?”
He laughs a little with that question. “If only my issues were as trivial as
matters of the heart.” He leans into the wall so that he can face me. “What
floor do you live on?” He licks his fingers and pinches the end of his joint,
then puts it back in his pocket. “I’ve never noticed you before.”
“That’s because I don’t live here.” I point in the direction of my
apartment. “See that insurance building?”
He squints as he looks in the direction I’m pointing. “Yeah.”
“I live in the building next to it. It’s too short to see from here. It’s only
three stories tall.”

---

He’s facing me again, resting his elbow on the ledge. “If you live over
there, why are you here? Your boyfriend live here or something?”
His comment somehow makes me feel cheap. It was too easy—an
amateurish pickup line. From the looks of this guy, I know he has better
skills than that. It makes me think he saves the more difficult pickup lines
for the women he deems worthy.
“You have a nice roof,” I tell him.
He lifts an eyebrow, waiting for more of an explanation.
“I wanted fresh air. Somewhere to think. I pulled up Google Earth and
found the closest apartment complex with a decent rooftop patio.”
He regards me with a smile. “At least you’re economical,” he says.
“That’s a good quality to have.”
At least?
I nod, because I 
am
economical. And it 
is
a good quality to have.
“Why did you need fresh air?” he asks.
Because I buried my father today and gave an epically disastrous eulogy and
now I feel like I can’t breathe.
I face forward again and slowly exhale. “Can we just not talk for a little
while?”
He seems a bit relieved that I asked for silence. He leans over the ledge
and lets an arm dangle as he stares down at the street. He stays like this for
a while, and I stare at him the entire time. He probably knows I’m staring,
but he doesn’t seem to care.
“A guy fell off this roof last month,” he says.
I would be annoyed at his lack of respect for my request for silence, but
I’m kind of intrigued.
“Was it an accident?”
He shrugs. “No one knows. It happened late in the evening. His wife
said she was cooking dinner and he told her he was coming up here to
take some pictures of the sunset. He was a photographer. They think he
was leaning over the ledge to get a shot of the skyline, and he slipped.”
I look over the ledge, wondering how someone could possibly put
themselves in a situation where they could fall by accident. But then I
remember I was just straddling the ledge on the other side of the roof a
few minutes ago.
“When my sister told me what happened, the only thing I could think
about was whether or not he got the shot. I was hoping his camera didn’t

---

fall with him, because that would have been a real waste, you know? To die
because of your love of photography, but you didn’t even get the final shot
that cost you your life?”
His thought makes me laugh. Although I’m not sure I should have
laughed at that. “Do you always say exactly what’s on your mind?”
He shrugs. “Not to most people.”
This makes me smile. I like that he doesn’t even know me, but for
whatever reason, I’m not considered