The wind was softer up here—higher, cooler, like it belonged to a different sky. It tugged gently at her hair, swept across her legs beneath the pleated skirt, and carried with it the distant sound of laughter from the classrooms below.
She leaned against the railing, just enough to look effortless—like the way her reflection always looked in glass doors and convenience store windows. She swept back the stray hairs fluttering in the breeze with a kind of elegance that had been cultivated over years. She watched the students below come and go.
"A rooftop, huh? How cliché" she thought.
The rooftop confession—she'd had her fair share. Honestly, it was one of the most overused spots she'd been asked out on.
She knew she was pretty. Not in the *"oh, she's kind of cute"* way. No—head-turning pretty." "Letter-in-the-shoe-locker" pretty. "Will you go out with me?" whispered in hallways and scribbled into notebooks. It happened often enough that she no longer blushed.
She only smiled. Gently. Like she might say yes.
She liked to make them wonder.
And today? Today felt like any other day.
She honestly couldn't wait to dump the guy already.
The door creaked open behind her.
"Took you long enou—" she started, turning with her best half-lidded smile.
Only—it wasn't the guy whose name was on the letter.
Scratch that, it wasn't a guy at all.
It was a girl about the same age. A familiar face, though the name escaped her.
She turned fully, back lightly resting against the guardrails. Quiet. Waiting for the girl to speak first. But something was… off. There was a frantic tension in the air. Like the girl had made up her mind about something—something dangerous.
A cleared throat.
"The note. He didn't write it. I did."
A pause.
"Seriously?" she laughed, tossing her hair over her shoulder. "What, do you like me now too?"
"God, you're insufferable," the girl spat, suddenly shaking. "It's always like this. You walk into a room, and suddenly I don't exist."
"Not my fault if you blend into the walls."
"I work hard. I study, I try to be nice, I try to be someone people notice—but you don't even have to try. You just… smile. And people fall over themselves."
"How is it my fault that I'm that likeable?"
The girl stepped closer.
"Do you know how many times I've heard my name start to come up—only for someone to change the subject to you?"
"Okay, so what? I'm supposed to apologize for being better than you at existing?"
"You don't even care, do you?" Her voice cracked. "You don't care who you hurt. You don't care who disappears."
A sigh. Exasperated.
"Look, I'm sorry you're forgettable, but you came all the way up here just to whine? This is kind of pathetic. Even for you."
The girl's breath caught.
She looked at her like she was something unholy.
Then—quietly, almost too softly:
"I just wanted you to feel how it feels… to be pushed out of the frame."
And she shoved.
Suddenly, the world went askew. There was only shock, only the rushing wind, only the sky turning and spinning and vanishing.
She was falling.
Her eyes locked onto the girl above, now looking more terrified than she was.
In a matter of seconds, eighteen years of living—gone.
All because of childish envy.
The pain never came. If anything, she was lucky—she landed headfirst.
She hadn't known what to expect in death. A final thought, maybe. A flash of light.
Not this.
Not a silence so deep, it felt like she'd been swallowed inside a bubble with only her thoughts.