Merry Mondays

Dane Thomas jumped off the school roof.

He jumped off of the school roof and Elin despised him for it.

It was unjustified, and perhaps selfish - given the fact that the unfortunate boy had spent the first three days of winter break and Christmas in the intensive care unit of Treslon International Hospital hooked up to various machines. Nevertheless, as Elin stood infront of the guidance counselor’s room on the day after Christmas, she couldn’t help her animosity towards the boy she didn’t know.

She thought back to last Thursday, the last day of school before winter break commenced. Her Biology teacher had sent her back upto the schools botanical garden to fetch the stack of tests that he’d forgotten there. A test which she had studied her arse off for and was almost positive she had aced.

She had marched herself up the stairs, ignoring the burn in her legs and the indication that she should start working out more. Her hasty steps had come to an abrupt halt as she took in the sight before her. What in the name of all that is holy?

A boy.

Precariously close to the edge.

The unsecured edge, devoid of a barrier or railing.

An unsettling feeling welled in her stomach. The following situation didn’t exactly imply good things. Elin opened her mouth to yell at the boy to back away before he fell to his death. Before she could, he did just that.

Fall.

Not to his death, though.

She assumed.

Someone had screamed. But it didn’t sound like her. It was a scream of anguish and pain. Emotions that she wasn’t feeling. The only thing she could feel was the unadulterated shock coursing through her veins. Realization eventually set in.

It wasn’t her.

She hadn’t screamed.

There was someone else on the roof top. She turned to the figure on the right. Elin had distantly acknowledged the presence of the other boy in her mind, a friend no doubt of the could-be-deceased jumper. He was rapidly gesturing towards something, his mouth was moving too. She could hear him, but the words weren’t registering in her mind, just his loud voice and urgent demeanor.

She realized she wasn’t even really seeing him either as her vision blurred. After a moment of failed communication attempts, the boy darted across the open roof towards the exit. Away from her.

Probably off to tell a teacher or the administration. Maybe even call an ambulance. Something she should do.

Elin lowered herself until she was crouching on the ground, cradling her head in her shaking hands.

What had just happened?

All she wanted was to get the stack of papers and return them to her teacher. But to stumble upon this? A suicide attempt? Elin didn’t know what this meant.

Some part of her, the one influenced by Hollywood movies, told her that she should be hysteric right now. She’s just seen someone try to fucking kill themselves. Jump off a roof.

Well, it was either that or he was trying to deduce whether he was the next Superman and jumping off a roof to kick start his flying powers had seemed like the perfect idea to him.

Spoiler: it didn’t work.

Suicide and Superman. Those were the only two reasons she could think off.

She closed her eyes shut as the world around her kept spinning. Maybe he was a stunt double? A wannabe parkour expert? Even she knew that was a stretch. Not because it was unlikely, but because nothing exciting ever happened in her city. There would be no movie shootings going on, and certainly not in her school.

Elin had seen similar situations many times, through the pages of a book or from behind a screen. Hell, she’d even heard real life accounts of people stumbling upon suicide jumpers.

But in all of those situations the two people were able to talk, to converse. It gave the other an opportunity to coax the jumper down the ledge. And even if they failed in doing so, atleast they had the satisfaction of trying.

Elin didn’t have that satisfaction.

She hadn’t even registered the implications of the situation that she had walked in on when the boy had jumped.

She didn’t have the time or opportunity to do anything.

She had simply walked in, and he had jumped.

Another part of her wanted too rush over to the edge of the roof and look down. Look down and see, to satiate her twisted curiosity. See what? His mangled bleeding body?

She wondered if it lay on the ground, unnoticed or if there was a crowd of onlookers around.

Her question was answered when she heard the distant sound of an ambulance’s siren.

The ambulance was without a doubt for the jumper. Unless someone else had decided to get shot or throw themselves down a flight of stairs today. Actually, she shouldn’t be so sure that the ambulance wasn’t for someone else.

Given the fact that one of the kids in her chemistry class last year had downed a 500ml beaker of unlabeled blue liquid like a shot, she shouldn’t be sure at all.

Moronic tendencies seemed to run in the blood of teenagers.

Instead of speculating about what was going on with the could-be-dead body, she should be downstairs. Infact, she should have done what the only other person who had witnessed the whole ordeal had done. She should have raced down immediately and informed someone. Called an ambulance.

Once her ears had stopped ringing, she had slowly gotten up and taken a deep breath before turning around and purposefully striding across the roof and down the stairs to find a teacher.

And maybe down a shot of vodka.

That was how, on the first day of winter break she found herself in this position. Standing infront of the guidance counselor’s room, cursing a suicidal teenager she didn’t know because apparently the school administration deemed it necessary for her to have sessions with the guidance counselor to help cope with the supposed grief she was dealing with.

Or as Principal Lahmers had worded it, “assist the healing process.”

They could word it how they wanted, in the end it was still the schools version of low budget therapy sessions.

There was no grief or need for a healing process. Elin hardly knew the guy, infact she only found out his name after overhearing one of the paramedics.

Dane Thomas.

She hardly knew the guy, if at all, and witnessing one of his weakest (and possibly last) moments didn’t mean anthing to her. She was in shock, ofcourse. But that wore off soon enough.

Was that enough to convince Principal Lahmers though? Ofcourse not.

She was sent home early that day. Her parents had insisted on not going to Ohio for Christmas that weekend like they had previously planned. When Elin had protested, her mother a clicked her tongue disapprovingly.

“It just doesn’t feel right to set you on an airplane and send you off travelling with us after what you’ve just been through today. It might affect your state of mind,” she had said.

Elin had wanted to scream, to let out a sound that would put the pterodactyls in Jurassic Park to shame.

WHAT WAS THE LINK BETWEEN TRAVELLING AND HER STATE OF MIND? She struggled to find the correlation. Her parents made zero sense sometimes. So instead of going to Ohio and spending Christmas with her grandmother and cousins, they’d stayed at home. Instead her brother and Aunt Larissa had come over for dinner. So it hadn’t been that bad, really.

Dane Thomas jumped off the school roof and ruined her Christmas plans.

She was aware of how self-centered her thoughts were, but she didn’t really care. It wasn’t as if though she’d voice her minds inner ramblings out loud. So there was no reason to filter her inner voice.

She continued staring at the closed door in front of her as she mentally played back the events that took place in the past week. The words “Counselor’s Office” stared back at her, like they had been for the past-

“Nine minutes.”

Elin turned around to see a young brunette guy. His brown hair was up in a quiff, the kind that reminded her of 2013 boy band singers. Any further inspection was paused as she took in his attire. What the fuck? He was clad in the most hideous sweater she had seen that season. And there were alot of hideous sweaters out in the open during Christmas season. This one took the cake though.

“Excuse me?” Her voice came out unintentionally curt. It usually did.

The guy tilted his head to the right in curiosity, a reaction no doubt to hearing her accent. “You’ve been standing outside that office door for the past nine minutes, well nine minutes and thirty six seconds. But hey, who’s counting?”

“You, apparently.”

He lets out a light laugh. “You’ve got me there. But really, whats keeping you from going in? Or just walking away altogether?”

Elin runs her eyes quickly across the guys outfit again, unable to help herself. Black sneakers, baggy slacks and an illfitting moss green sweater that would make Donatella Versace gouge her eyes out with a plastic spork.

He most likely went to her school, although he did look a bit older. Perhaps a freshman in college. But what would a college student be doing in a highschool? Maybe he just had one of those faces that seem older than they really are.

“Are you scared of going in?” the guy inquired, not letting Elin’s lack of response deter him.

Elin shook her head.

“Then?”

She didn’t really know how she could put her thoughts into words. No scratch that, she knew just how to do that. What Elin struggled with was putting her thoughts into words that would be considered socially acceptable. She didn’t think the conversation would flow quite as smoothly if she said, “I’m being forced to spend my winter break by coming to school at an ungodly hour of 7 am and attending an hour long therapy session with the guidance counselor who i’ve never seen before. All because I just so happened to walk in the moment a guy attempted to kill himself.”

She didn’t think it would go too well if she told the guy to stop asking so many fucking questions and counting the time random people take to do things.

“It really isn’t important,” Elin said, hoping the simple sentence would be enough to get the guy to back up a bit.

The Guy With the Ugly Sweater, as Elin had dubbed him, kept staring.

“I’d rather not tell anything,” she said again, hoping he’d realize Elin didn’t want to converse with him. She was finding it hard to maintain eye contact with him since her eyes kept drifiting down to the woolen monstrosity he was wearing. She squinted, what was that grey blob in the middle?

The Guy With the Ugly Sweater took a step closer to her. “You really aren’t the talkative kind are you? That’s going to be a problem.”

Elin brought her eyes back up to his and took a step back to reinstate the distance between them. She crossed her arms. “Listen up pal, it isn’t really any of your business whether or not I spend nine minutes and fuck knows how many seconds standing outside a door.”

Rather than being offended, he let a smile overcome his face. One that was too smug for her liking.

The Guy With the Ugly Sweater takes another step forwards, until he’s a few inches away from Elin. He reaches for the door knob, turns it and walks past her into the room. He faces her and an even smugger - seriously? How was it possible for someone to be that smug - smile is spread across his face.

“Step into my office please.”

Turns it actually was his business, quite literally.