I am helpless.

Adam sings extra verses. To buy time, I think. Waiting for Casper to say nevermind, let's go home. She doesn't. Eventually, he stops. There are tears on Casper's face, but she's smiling. "Told you he was good." Simultaneously, she and I reach for each other's hands. I grip her small fingers in mine, and I try to blink back the tears when she says, "Help me up."

We stand. Casper braces herself against the railing and looks out over the water. I think about how this is going to feel. How much we're going to feel until we never want to feel again. And I think—we could jump. All three of us.

Together.

There don't need to be any goodbyes.

As though she knows what I'm thinking, Casper squeezes my hand and her eyes meet mine. I know what she wants. What she needs. And my stomach is twisting and turning, but I swing a leg over the railing for the other side, while Adam helps her from his side, because she doesn't have the strength to do it herself.

We're helping our best friend die. She wouldn't be able to do this without us.

I hold onto the railing with one hand and onto Casper with the other. It's dark. Hard to see where the ledge ends and open sky begins. Adam remains where he is. When I look back, his eyes are wide, gold pools of worry and fear, and I realize he thinks I might jump, too.

I could.

But I don't think about jumping with only Casper, because the idea of leaving Adam behind, alone, is too much. It's more frightening than thinking ten minutes, five minutes ahead. Of what tomorrow will bring when Casper is gone.

Her breathing can be heard over the sound of the wind. She leans forward, staring down with tears on her face. She's frightened. It's nothing like Jessica. There is no peace. There is no resolve.

We stay there and the minutes tick by. Three and then four. Five. Casper loosens her grip on my hand, holding onto the rails by herself. It takes everything I have not to reach out and grab her around the waist.

Her eyes fall closed.

And—

"God, I can't..."

There is nothing left to say.

She tries to turn to me, reaching, sobbing, "I'm sorry, I'm sorry." We stumble in my attempt to grab her so quickly. My foot hits a spot I thought would be ledge, but is nothing.

For half a second, I am sure we're both going to fall.

Then Adam lunges forward, his fingers like a vice around my arm.

It's a group effort to get us back over the railing, and we collapse, a mess of tears. A mess of everything.

We are all broken.

CHAPTER 26

Casper is a tiny ball in the back seat, her back to Adam and me. I don't know if she's sleeping, so Adam and I don't talk. Maybe we wouldn't know what to say anyway.