“Hi, Jesse.”

Jesse stopped in the doorway, staring out at the rooftop.

Rion was standing there, waving at him, dressed in nothing but a hospital gown, surrounded by snow. He was half-turned, smiling faintly. He had one hand on the ledge, his hurt arm. His bandages were all pulled down, hanging loose around his elbow.

Smiling… How could Rion be smiling?

It was surreal. The whole thing was surreal. Jesse wondered if he was hallucinating. Maybe he was imagining it. Rion should be on the fourth floor, in his room. He shouldn’t be up here.

“What are you doing?” Jesse croaked, his voice rough from sobbing in the stairwell.

He was still out of breath from his walk up. He tried to clear his throat. His mouth was dry, his tongue like sandpaper. The cold air didn’t help, either.

“I came up here to think,” Rion said. “What about you?”

“I needed some air,” Jesse said.

Hallucinating or not, he didn’t want to stand by the stairwell. He stuffed his hands in his pockets and walked over to where Rion stood.

He could see Rion’s footprints in the snow. He’d come up from the other side, on the other staircase. He wasn’t wearing shoes…

Rion was still smiling faintly when Jesse reached him. And seeing him up close, beginning to accept that this really was real, his inside recoiled. He felt sick just standing next to Rion. His emotions threatened to bubble up and burst.

Rion was standing right in front of him. Rion, the boy who had electrocuted Amber.

Amber had been pregnant.

Jesse’s skin was crawling. He wanted to be anywhere but here.

“Air is good,” Rion said lightly, as though they were having a normal conversation. As if he weren’t standing there in nothing but a hospital gown. Wasn’t he cold? “Yeah, I came here for some of that too; to breathe and think.”

“This is a shitty place to come and think,” Jesse said, looking around.

“Depends on what you came here to think about.”

The sun was setting, everything bathed in an orange glow. There was a perfect view of the whole town from up here, but looking out made Jesse nauseous.

Or maybe it was everything else making him nauseous. He couldn’t be sure.

Talking to Rion like this was…wrong. Rion was standing there without a care in the world, a breeze ruffling his dark hair. He looked carefree, happy.

And it made Jesse so impossibly angry.

After everything Rion said and did, how could he be happy? How could he…?

“What are you thinking about then?” Jesse asked. It came out angry, bitter. “What’s so great about being up here in the cold? You don’t even have a coat.”

Rion leaned into the guard rail, looking out to the open prairie.

“I was thinking about jumping.”

Jesse’s thoughts came to a halt. He fumbled, trying to collect himself.

The rooftop. They were…

Oh. Oh, God. Why didn’t he realize…?

“I was thinking I might not have the strength to lift myself,” Rion continued, looking over the edge. “My arm’s still hurt pretty bad. And my feet. I could probably do it, but it might take a while. It’ll be messy and gross. When I fall, I mean. You probably don’t want to see.”

Jesse felt sick, listening to him talk about it. It was a different kind of nausea. He clenched and unclenched his hands, palms sweating. His heart was beginning to beat an anxious rhythm in his chest.

The idea that Rion was here to kill himself… Jesse was almost surprised at how much the thought hurt. It left a deep ache in his chest. It was wrong.

He shouldn’t feel this way. Not about Rion. Not after what he’d done.

But he did.

“You… No,” Jesse said. “You can’t do that.”

“I could,” Rion said. “Noa doesn’t want me around. This would make it permanent. No one else would care, except Dr. Maes–”

“Everyone would care,” Jesse said.

“That’s not true,” Rion said.

“No, I mean it. Everyone would care,” Jesse said. “Peter and all the others. Noa. Your dad. Everyone.”

“They would feel sorry for themselves,” Rion said bitterly, his grip on the guard rail tightening. “They’ll feel bad for a little while. They’ll have their moment of ‘oh, gosh, that’s so sad’. And then they’ll get over it and go back to their lives.”

“I haven’t gotten over Amber,” Jesse said.

“That’s different,” Rion told him. “You loved her. And she was a good person. She was amazing. I’m not that. That’s not me. It’s never going to be me.”

Jesse agreed with Rion, and in that moment, he hated himself for it. He hated that he believed what Rion was saying. He hated that some part of him thought Rion was right.

“You still shouldn’t do it,” Jesse said, the words weak to his own ears.

“It’s okay, Jesse,” Rion said. “This is right.”

They fell silent. Jesse looked out at the open prairie, out at the setting sun. He didn’t know what to feel anymore. It was too much all at once. Finding out about Amber… Rion talking about jumping…

Rion was wrong, but he was right at the same time. Jesse wanted to be angry at him. He wanted to hate him. But…

He didn’t know. He didn’t know anymore.

Jesse was overwhelmed with his grief for Amber. He was overwhelmed with grief for a child he could have had. He wanted to lash out at something, anything, and he had no outlet.

“Don’t… Don’t you go to Hell if you commit suicide?” Jesse said, the words hollow to his own ears. It was his weakest argument yet.

“I’m not going to Heaven anyway,” Rion said. “I killed Amber. I killed your baby. There’s no way. What’s a little suicide to top it all off. Who cares.”

And Jesse couldn’t argue that either.

Maybe he was just as horrible as Rion. Because some part of him agreed with him completely. There was nothing he could say to make him stop, no conviction behind his own words.

Was it because he was angry? Was it because he was upset? Or was Rion right?

“You know, it really sucks. Because I was hoping that I might be able to see Mom again when I died,” Rion said and let out a weak huff of pathetic laughter. “That’s never going to happen.”

“Rion…” Jesse said.

But he had nothing else to add.

“Can you do me a favour?”

Jesse hesitated but turned to Rion.

“Can you give me a boost up?” Rion said, jerking his head to the ledge. “Since I probably can’t get up by myself. You don’t have to push me or anything. I don’t want to turn you into a murderer. Just…help me up. And then you can… You can walk away. You can just walk away and forget all about this. And then we’ve all done right by Amber and your kid. It’s like…justice. Right?”

“A boost onto the ledge,” Jesse repeated.

“Yeah. So I can jump when you leave.”

Rion was serious. He meant it. He was really going to do it.

Jesse looked at Rion’s arm, looked at the stitches. He thought about how worried Peter had been when he told Jesse the truth. He thought about how Danny had gone to get Dr. Maes. He thought about Sarina and Celeste and everyone else and…

What was right? What was the right thing to do? Did Rion deserve to die?

What he did to Amber was horrible. It was awful. It was terrible. Rion, in his own words, said he killed her. He said…

Jesse stood there. For a long time, he didn’t do anything. And Rion watched him, waiting.

Rion was ready. He could see it in his eyes.

Jesse stepped forward.

There wasn’t a way to grab Rion that Jesse didn’t think would hurt him. So he snatched him roughly by the upper arm of his good arm and pulled him as hard as he could. Rion yelped, loosing his grip on guard rail, stumbling backwards. He tripped and Jesse let him fall to the ground onto that light layer of snow.

“Ow!” Rion protested. “What are you doing?!”

“You’re going back to your room!” Jesse told him, his voice raising. His anger rose too, but with it came an extreme, vindictive satisfaction. “And then I’m telling everyone that you’re suicidal!”

“What?! Why?! Why would you–?!”

“Because you’re not dying today!” Jesse said. He crouched down and jabbed a finger right in Rion’s face. “You don’t get to make that choice!”

Rion stared up at him, bewildered. “But… I… Why? Don’t you agree–”

“No!” Jesse said. “I don’t agree! Because it’s not what Amber would have wanted!”

They both fell silent, staring at each other.

Jesse was breathing heavily. His feelings were like an explosion in his chest, overflowing inside him. But he knew he was right. His logic was flawless. It was a moment of pure clarity.

This wasn’t what Amber would have wanted. It would have broken her heart to see them like this, to hear this conversation. It would have hurt her, devastated her. She would have hated it.

And if Amber wouldn’t have wanted this, Jesse didn’t want it either.

He also wouldn’t deny that it felt good to deny Rion. It felt good to not let him have his way, to deny him the easy way out.

It was the right thing to do. It had to be.

Rion was going to live whether he wanted to or not.

“Jesse…” Rion began.

“Up,” Jesse said, grabbing hold of his good arm. “Get up or I’m carrying you.”

“I… Wait, I can’t–!” Rion said, fumbling. “Stop it! Just leave me here!”

“No, I won’t!” Jesse said, heaving. He managed to pull him up, though Rion was grimacing and leaning into him heavily. “Listen, Rion. Listen to me! What happened to Amber was your fault, right?”

“Y-yeah…” Rion said.

“Then you don’t get to run away!” Jesse said. “You hear me? You have to live with what you’ve done. And if you don’t like it, too fucking bad! Got it?”

“I… What?” Rion said. “I don’t… I…”

“I don’t care. Let’s go,” Jesse said.

“I can’t… My feet hurt,” Rion said.

“You walked up here, didn’t you?”

“I never planned on walking back down…”

“Come here.”

It took some fumbling and arguing, but in the end, Jesse got Rion up on his back. He piggybacked him, carrying him back to the stairs.

“You might fall,” Rion tried to argue as they headed down.

“That shouldn’t bother you,” Jesse said, taking it slow. His shoes were wet and slippery on the steps. “You were the one who wanted to jump.”

“Yeah, but I didn’t want to hurt anyone else!” Rion said, arms tightening around him. “What if you get hurt? Or killed?”

“Then you’re going to have to live with that too,” Jesse said, determined.

It was a long walk down and Rion seemed to get heavier by the second. Fortunately, they were going down the stairs and not up. It wasn’t that far to the fourth floor, though Jesse was panting when he stumbled out of the stairwell with Rion on his back.

“Jesse! Rion!”

They were immediately greeted by Peter and Danny, who rushed over, Dr. Maes and some nurses not too far behind.

“What happened?” Danny asked, wide eyed.

“You disappeared from your room!” Peter said to Rion. “We were so worried! They were paging for you all over the intercom system!”

“Rion tried to jump off the roof,” Jesse announced, not hesitating at all.

Rion hissed at him angrily, arms tightening around his neck. But Jesse didn’t care. He took satisfaction in it.

“I’m staying with him until I know he’s safe,” Jesse said.