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Chapter 1: Suffering


The evening sky was an aray of colors; blues, purples, oranges, reds. It was all of the beauty that shone in the sky as the sun made its marvelous exit from the world, sinking beneath the horizon until it arose again the very next day. It was the type of sunset that would warm your heart and freeze a moment in time if you stood outside watching it, enveloping the one you loved in your arms. But for one lonely man, standing alone on a stone bridge and overlooking the mass of water before him, the splendid beauty of his surroundings brought him no happiness.

Instead, it brought pain.

Intense pain.

For he had noone to hold in his arms at the moment, noone to just stand there and share the moment with. His heart was so shattered into tiny shards, that it was beyond repair. No super glue could mend his broken heart and make the pain go away. He knew the pain would be there for all enternity.

Helplessness had long ago taken over his body when he knew there was nothing he could do to fix what had happened, emptiness consumed all of his being, leaving him with a void he couldn't fill.

With all he could see and understand, his world was shattered. He couldn't see anything as what it used to be. It was all just a bunch of rubble, the piles of aftermath from all the mistakes he had ever made in his life so far. As much as he knew, he, himself, no longer existed. He wasn't who he used to be and he hadn't been for a long time. He'd finally given up hope on ever returning to the person he had been long ago.

That was why he had gone to the bridge. Finding the opportunity to finally get away for a while, alone, he took it and ran. When he first started running, he hadn't planned on ending up at the bridge; he didn't have any idea where he was heading. All he knew was he was running and heading towards his own destruction, and to him, 'his own destruction' seemed like an appealing phrase.

Now he sat atop the stone railing, sitting at an angle with one knee drawn up to his chest and an arm dangling over the pointed knee. His usually soulful eyes were clouded over with pain, sadness, regret, confusion, anger, fear and anything else his tired mind could come up with that would eat away at him.

He didn't know what to do anymore, nothing made sense.

It was as if his end had come.

And maybe that's what had led him to the bridge.

In some sick sense, he felt there was nothing left to do but to end it all, end all of his pain and suffering he felt deep inside. All were feelings that nobody knew about but himself. He'd been able to hide it well from everyone, hiding it behind a fake mask of happiness that he had learned to polish over the years when times got tough. This was defenitely one of those times.

A small breeze whizzed by his tanned skin and something unknown caused him to force his gaze to travel downward, gazing upon a bed of jagged rocks penetrating the shallow water's surface below. His stomach suddenly twisted into a pile of tight knots and he unconciously gripped the stone railing with his free hand to keep his balance. He involuntarily shivered as he conciously realized to the full extent for the first time about how high up he was.

Seconds later, his whole body was shaking as beads of perspiration formed along the hairline on his forehead. Surely he was losing his sanity, or more correctly, he had already lost it. He closed his eyes and took a deep breath, then opened them and looked down again.

What if he let go of his grip on the railing...

Then leaned a little bit forward...

'Oh God, help me!' his mind cried out helplessly as a small whimper escaped his lips. His squeezed his eyes shut, his stomach twisting harder, causing him to become queazy to an extreme extent. His mind was reeling over the thought of what he had just been thinking of doing, and he knew how weak he was.

"Help me God, please..." he whispered, almost begging to the higher being above. The small plea that spewed from his lips made it seem like there was still a tiny bit of hope left, something he hadn't felt in a long time. He wanted an answer, he needed an answer because he was suddenly so afraid of what he knew he would do.

"Excuse me?"

He whipped around at the sound of the new voice, but in the process, lost his balance all together and slipped off the railing. His hands grasped at the air, but he was clutching at nothing, until...

Before he could fall completely, a strong hand grabbed ahold of his shirt, pulling him back onto the railing. With the angle he had been pulled back up with, he hit the stone railing with his chest and felt the air get knocked out of him for a minute. He rested there for a moment, trying to catch his breath and gather the courage to look up.

"Are you ok?" the voice asked, it's tone gentle and filled with concern that he had missed hearing for quite some time.

He looked up and found himself staring into a pair of crystal clear blue eyes, ones that, to him, seemed to shine through the on-coming darkness of the evening hours. "I, uh...y-yeah," he stuttered, using his shaking arms to hoist himself over the railing. He planted his feet on solid ground again.

"What do you think you were doing getting so close to the edge lke that? Are you crazy!?"

'If you only knew' was the thought that came to his mind.

"Do you realize what would have happened if you would have actually fallen?"

'Yes' his mind answered, but a lie came out of his mouth instead. "No," he replied weakly, leaning against the stone to regain his lost balance. He hid his face by foolishly resting it in the cup of his shaking hands.

"Are you sure you're ok?"

"Yes," he continued to lie, trying to convince this stranger something he couldn't even convince himself of because he knew it wasn't true.

"I guess I'll be leaving now."

He paused and stood up straight. "Wait, could you stay? I think I'd really like some company right now."

The stranger shrugged, an angelic smile curling her lips as she nodded and leaned on the railing. "Sure."

'Thank you' he prayed silently towards the sky, wondering if this stranger was actually the answer to his crying prayer for help. He felt the relief course through his body, knowing he wasn't alone anymore at the moment. He didn't want to be alone anymore, he didn't trust himself enough, and he didn't know if he ever would again.

"Nice sunset, huh?" she asked, her eyes trained on the aray of colors that were now beginning to fade as night took over. "God sure has a way with that paint brush of his..."

"Yeah..." He tried to smile. Not wanting to bring any attention on him, he spoke up again. "What brings you out here tonight?"

"Me?" she asked as if he hadn't been speaking to her, and he nodded. "Oh, it was just a bad day today...and taking a walk calms me."

Her explanation was simple and it seemed as if she were holding something back. "Is something wrong?"

She let out a small, uncertain laugh. "It's nothing important, not something I'll bother you with." She locked her gaze with his and stared deep into the abyss of his dark orbs, almost searching. "Are you alright? You looked distressed when I first saw you."

"Nah, I just had a bad day today too," he answered, speaking half the truth. "So I decided to take a walk and ended up here on this bridge."

"Good choice, it's a perfect place to watch the sunset. Though you don't want to get too close to the edge."

"Yeah, I realized that." He gave a nervous laugh as he rested his elbows on the railing. "Thanks for saving me."

"It looked like I caused you to fall."

"But you caught me."

"Yeah."

Silence passed over the two of them for the next few minutes as they both stared at the darkening sky, watching as dozens of stars began to appear. Than he gathered the courage to ask the question that he had never had trouble asking before. "Would you mind if I asked you for your name?"

"It's Jameelah," she replied, smiling.

"Jameelah?" he asked.

"It's Arabic."

"It's a beautiful name."

Jameelah blushed. "Thank you."

For the first time that night, he was actually able to smile. Than he turned back to look at the water as Jameelah continued to look at.

"Are you going to tell me your name?" she asked with an impish smile.

He paused at her question, unsure if he should answer. Could he trust telling her his name since it was obvious that she hadn't recognized him already? Or did he want to give her a fake identity, which was something he often did when a person he met didn't recognize him. Though, within the past few years, that didn't happen very often.

"Do you always ask for someone's name and then not tell your's in return?" she pressed.

"It's...Alex," he blurted, his gaze once again meeting up with her's. That's when he saw it; a spark of recognition lit up in her eyes. He winced, expecting a shriek of some sort to escape her lips, but it never came. Instead, her smile broadened a bit.

"I thought you looked familiar," Jameelah told him, her look conveying the fact that she wouldn't go psyco because of who he was. "But I thought you went by the name of AJ...?"

"Yeah, that's what everyone usually calls me," AJ shrugged, unconciously chewing on his bottom lip.

"Well, I like the name Alex."

"Then, that's what you can call me."

"Alright," Jameelah smiled as she raised her wrist to steal a glance at her watch. Her eyes opened wide and she looked up at AJ with an apologetic look. "I'm sorry, but I have to go. I told my roommate that I would be back within an hour and that was nearly an hour and fifteen minutes ago."

"Maybe I'll see you around?" AJ asked, knowing it was a long shot as he tried to hint something.

Jameelah stopped from turning around. She reached into her jacket pocket and luckily pulled out a small piece of paper and a pen. She scribbled something down and handed it to AJ. "Call me sometime...I'd really like to talk to you again. It was nice meeting you."

"The feeling is mutual," AJ answered, looking down at the paper, then back up at Jameelah.

Jameelah began to walk away, but she wasn't hesitant to call back over her shoulder, "Just keep smiling Alex. All bad days do come to an end." Then she dissappeared into the distant dark of the night.

'And because of you, my bad day didn't come to an end the wrong way' AJ thought as he looked back down at the jagged rocks below. He shivered at the sight and shook his head, feeling ashamed. With that thought out of his mind, AJ stuck his hands in his pockets and headed back to the hotel.

He would call her as soon as he got there.