John stared up at the towers as he walked down the sidewalk. At this time in the morning they looked like dark spires trying to hide among the hazy grayness of the sky. There are too many of them, he thought, as he hurried across a deserted intersection.
"How am I supposed to pick just one?" he said out loud. John had always been indecisive. He remembered earlier in the night when the pretty blonde in the elevator had asked him what floor he wanted to go to, and he had responded, "I don't know." He knew damn well that he lived on the 12th floor.
"You're such an idiot, John. That's why you'll never get a girlfriend," he said, then realized that he really never would get a girlfriend, not after tonight.
He eventually gave up on the idea of the towers. Climbing would take too much time and effort, after all. Besides, there was a perfectly good bridge a couple of blocks further down Main St.
John could hear the water sloshing against the rocks before he could see the bridge. A wave of fog had submerged the banks of the river, reducing visibility to just a few yards.
As John approached the center of the bridge, he wondered how long it would take people to find his body. He hoped the raging current would drag him out to the ocean before anyone was able to discover what had happened. He comforted himself with such thoughts as he approached the lamppost that marked the center of the bridge. The lamppost looked strange tonight, however, as if it had swelled with water and become bloated.
"Don't try to stop me," the lamppost said to John as it shifted a little.
John twisted a little to look around the lamppost. On the other side of the pole was a girl, not much younger than John, sitting on the green metal rail of the bridge.
"Stop you from doing what?" John asked. He wanted to run away, but he didn't want to offend the cute girl with her disheveled hair and runny makeup.
"I'm going to jump and there's nothing you can do to stop me," she said inching a little closer to the edge.
"What! Don't do that. Are you crazy?" said John, grabbing on to the girl's bracelet covered wrist.
"I'm not crazy, and I've put a lot of thought into this. It's what I want to do. It's my choice," she said turning her head towards the dark river, but making no effort to escape John's grasp.
"But you're beautiful," John said without thinking, then realized what he had said and blushed. The girl turned to look at him and he averted her gaze.
After a few endless seconds the girl asked, "why are you out here?"
John had forgotten all about why he was there.
"I was just taking a walk," he lied.
"I saw you looking over the rail when you were walking up," the girl with the bracelets said as she swung her legs back over the rails towards the street. "You were thinking about jumping too!"
"No, I wasn't!" John said looking at the mascara-stained eyes for a second before looking down again. "Besides even if I was, I would have much more reason to than someone like you."
"How can you even say something like that?" the girl said as she shook John's hand from her wrist. "What's so terrible about your life?"
It was a question John had only ever heard in his head. He wasn't sure the answer would sound as convincing when he said it out loud.
"Well, er, I'm 20 years old and I've never even had a real girlfriend. Everyone just pretends to be a friend, but they don't ever try to find out how I really feel."
A sudden bout of laughter made John look up. This crazy girl was laughing at him. His cheeks turned even more red.
"I'm sorry," the girl said as she wiped some tears from her ears smudging her mascara across her face. "I guess my reason's not much better. You know you really shouldn't feel too bad. You seem like a really nice guy. A lot of girls would be happy to date you."
A car drove by briefly illuminating the pair of dark figures facing each other near the railing.
"Get a room!" someone shouted from the vehicle before it sped off and was swallowed by the fog.
The girl smiled and jumped off the railing, grabbing John's wrist. "Come on, let's go get something to eat. Say, what's your name anyway?"
"John, what's yours?"
"Christa, spelled with a "c". Where do you want to go, John?"
"Ihop," said John without hesitation. "I'm starving."
The lamppost stayed behind to guard the bridge while the pair disappeared into the fog.