“How could you! How could you! I trusted you!” Lea sat on the stairs listening to her parents’ fight. Her mom punched her hands against her dad’s chest, sobbing and screaming.

“I stayed with you through your treatment. I gave you a daughter. I did everything,” her mom cries.

Lea looked at her dad, just standing there, barely glancing at her mom. He looked down at her with something close to disgust, like she was embarrassing herself. Lea’s heart felt like lead as it sinked into her stomach and she realized something. Something a kid her age should never have to know.

Words are wasted on people who don’t listen.

She couldn’t articulate that thought for years, not until she sat in a therapists office dissecting her life, but it stayed with her.

As she grew up and left home, she kept everyone at arm’s length. She didn’t want to end up like her mother, screaming at someone who’d already blocked their ears.

As she sits now, on the edge of the roof of her building, she wonders what her life would be like if she hadn’t crept out of bed to go downstairs. If her incessant curiosity hadn’t led her straight into a trap.

She looks down at the bustling city beneath her. After she turned 18, she moved as far from home as possible, and that meant Chicago. A loud, busy, beautiful city which was a far cry from the silent suburban town where she grew up.

Beeeep. Beeeep.

A car honks loudly at another and Lea smiles. She loves the noise, the hustle and bustle. Sometimes she thinks the noise helps her block out all the sound in her mind.

She sees the tiny specks of speeding color, the streets lined with people walking or talking or scrolling on their phones. Lea sighs, wondering, not for the first time, what her place was in the world.

She wonders if she jumped off the roof today, would anyone come looking for her?

Did she have anyone to look for her?

Lea swings her legs against the concrete, still staring down at the road. She leans a little forward, just testing. A little more. Her stomach starts sinking a little as she feels the air pushing up against her face as she leans further.

Riiiing. Riiiing.

Lea jumps and straightens up, grabbing her phone from beside her. She glances at it and sees the name, Sophie Bennet, a girl Lea met freshman year in her Intro to Psychology class. Even after graduating, Sophie still texts her often, sometimes calls her. Lea doesn’t know why but she can’t bring herself to ghost her.

“Hey Lea!” Sophie’s bright voice comes through the speaker.

“Hey.”

“Whatcha doing?”

Lea glances down, not knowing how to explain it. “Uhh… just chilling,” she cringes.

“Cool! Listen, I’m having a little get together this weekend. Do you want to come?”

Lea furrows her brow. “You’re inviting me?”

“Mhm.”

“Why,” Lea blurts before thinking.

Sophie chuckles a little. “Cause you’re my friend, silly.”

Lea gapes, speechless for the first time in her life.

Friends. The concept is so foreign to her, it’s laughable really.

“So are you coming?” Sophie asks.

“Yeah-,” Lea voice cracks. “Yeah, sure.”

“Awesome! I’ll text you the address. See you then!”

And before Lea can respond, Sophie ends the call. Lea sits on the edge of the roof, twenty feet from her death, staring down at her phone for longer then she wants to admit, with no words in her mind.

Words don’t fail her. People do.

But for the first time, in a long time, she starts to think that maybe some people are worth it.