Untitled chapter
The breeze blew ice across her skin. It was dark and it was cold. And she had left her sweater behind anyway so this was a pretty obvious consequence. She looked out over cliff and across the sea. A storm was coming in and she should really be heading inside. She would have, but then she had always loved a good storm. She loved watching the sky turn slowly dark as flashes of angry lightning lit them up. She loved hearing the thunder roar and feeling the wind pick up, howling and raging against some great injustice – sometimes mourning some great loss.
It was fitting that there should be a storm now, on this day. A smile lifted the corner of her mouth almost imperceptibly. Of course there would be a storm today. She raised her face to the ever darkening heavens and took a deep breath. The sea breeze had always calmed her, always cleared her head and made her feel a little abler to deal with things that brought her down.
As another bolt of lightning streaked across the sky, she caught the gleam of something to her left. She glanced that way already knowing what she would find. The gleaming silver ring Harold had given her was sitting prettily on her finger. It was the one possession of his that she had kept. He had taken everything else, literally and figuratively.
She turned her gaze back to the heavens welcoming the first drops of rain. Another beautiful sound to add to the symphony surrounding her. The rain was cold and it was wet. By all indications, it was time to go back inside, and yet…
The storm raged around her, the rain picked up and the wind blew past her in fury. Above, the dark thunderheads met and clashed emitting bolt after bolt of lightning. From this far up, it would make sense that she would be struck by one of those mighty bolts and the thought gave her some trepidation just as much as it thrilled her. The sound of the wind rose to a roar, like a hungry beast seeking out cowering prey. The waves below her vantage point rose and fell crashing against the cliff face as if trying to bring down the unbending earth. Over time, they would but it would be no grand thing.
Just as her life had begun to feel…
She pushed the thoughts away glorying in the storm all around her. Roar, clash, blow, crash… it was all so beautiful, so very beautiful. And the world was ugly, as was her place in it. Well, none of that mattered. Nothing else mattered but this moment, this moment surrounded by the most brilliant storm she had ever experienced. The trees behind her creaked with its force. Soon, it would reach its zenith and she would be embraced by the sheer magnitude of its glory. She longed for it. She craved it.
It was fitting, she thought, a grateful tear falling down her face.
In a world where there was nobody else left to mourn her, she would be mourned by the raging sky. She would fly to them as she had so often wished she could. And when her life was spent, her soul would rise, rise into the angry clouds and remain in their embrace for all time – at least, she hoped so.
There was no going back anyway. There was nothing left to live for. The sadness she felt then was temporary, fleeting. She had no place here. It was time to make the world a little better. Her absence would do that. Nobody would care and whatever happened to her physical existence was no longer her concern. She would, she thought as she took a step forward, take her life into her hands.
She smiled as the next step took her over the cliff and hurtling into the inky black depths of the ocean. For the first time ever, she had made the only decision she had ever wished to make.
She was going to be free.
