Never again...because it was over...

She would leave her job of course; she couldn't stay, not now.

Move on, that's what she'd do.

Move on...without him...but with his babies growing inside her...

I slammed the book shut and closed my eyes. I cried myself to sleep.

Micah I stood on the pavement, staring at the sh.e.l.l that had once been Carousel in disbelief. I hadn't been here since the night it happened, and looking at it now...it hurt.

It looked so sad, it had been such a beautiful building, but now it was reduced to twisted metal and burnt out wood. The smell still hung in the air, and I knew I would never be able to be near a bonfire again. That I would always hate bonfire night with a pa.s.sion.

But then, that was a moot point anyway. Because I had no intentions of seeing another fifth of November.

I had no intentions of seeing tomorrow.

"Mic...?"

I blinked once, as usual not realising until I did so that I had been crying again and slowly turned to my left, to find Alex eyeing me cautiously.

"Alex..." I heard myself say.

"Hi bud...how're ya doing?"

How was I meant to answer that? Honestly or with a cliche? I opted for the second. "Getting there..." it was a blatant lie, I knew it so did he, but he didn't pull me up on it.

"Yeah? What are you doing here?"

"Just...I dunno..."

"How's Jewls?"

I flinched at her name and then shrugged. "We um...we split up." I was back looking at the remains of the restaurant. It was like I couldn't pull myself away from it, like I just had to torture myself with the image, stare at it until it was deeply ingrained in my memory, so I could be sure to have nightmares about it too.

"Oh...that's a shame. I'm sorry, Mic."

"Sorry for what?" I mumbled, still not looking away.

"Everything I guess. Look...I'm headed down to the park, Mason has a few of us doing maintenance jobs while the park is only open weekends, and I forgot my toolbox. You wanna come, walk with me a bit?"

I thought about that, and as an idea crept into my mind and settled there, I found myself nodding. "Sure, why not."

Jewls "Jewls?" I opened my eyes to find my mum smiling at me. "Hey sleepy head, it's almost seven. Mari is here to see you."

I sat up, surprised and instantly sure something awful had happened. "Mari?"

"Yeah. She's waiting in the living room."

"What did you say to her?"

She smiled knowingly. "If you mean did I tell her you're sixteen weeks pregnant with twins...no, I haven't."

"Mum! Keep your voice down."

"Up you get, come see your friend."

I nodded and reluctantly crawled out of bed. "Okay..."

In the living room I was surprised to see Mari pacing anxiously. She stopped when she saw me. "Jewls. Long shot, but have you seen Micah?"

I frowned, that bad feeling worsening in the pit of my stomach. "No...why?"

"Eli took him to his house this morning. They drank some and then Micah pa.s.sed out. He woke up an hour or so ago, and told Eli he was going outside for a cigarette. He gave him the slip, Jewls. No one has seen him since."

"Have you tried calling him?" I asked, knowing fine well it was a stupid question.

"Yeah, just rings out. Can you try? If he sees your name come up, he might answer."

I nodded eagerly. The last thing I needed right now was to hear Micah's voice, but I was never going to say no to Mari, and in any case, if something was wrong with Micah it was partly my fault. h.e.l.l, who was I kidding? It was all my fault.

"Course, yeah."

"Thanks, Jewls. It's just-" her phone rang, cutting her off and she held up a hand as if to say one sec. "Yeah, h.e.l.lo? Alex? He's what? Have you talked to Nic or Eli? No...no, I'll tell them, we'll be right over."

She hung up and looked at me, her eyes wide with fright. "Alex found him standing outside the restaurant. Said he looked a little...lost. He was going to the park to pick something up, suggested Micah take a walk with him, which he did. Anyway, when they got there, Micah wandered off. He was looking all over for him and found him."

"Found him where?" I asked, already scared of the answer.

Mari swallowed and I could see her visibly shaking. "The big wheel. At the top of the big wheel."

I opened my mouth to respond but my mouth had gone so dry no words came out. The three of us just stood there like idiots for far too long, before Mari snapped out of it first.

"I'm ringing Eli."

Micah It was calm, and it was peaceful. That was all I cared about in the moment. I had for some time felt like I needed to be away from everything people, places, all of it and at last I had found somewhere.

Granted, fifty feet in the air was not what everyone would consider an ideal place, especially not in heavy snow, but for me it was. The sky was perfectly clear considering the snowfall and dotted with stars and I could see for miles around, twinkling lights everywhere people getting on with their lives. I envied them, envied anyone who didn't feel the pain that I felt. I had forgotten what it was like to feel normal, well, and happy.

The wind was picking up, rocking the carriage back and forth. I thought of the time I had thrown Jewls over my shoulder, and brought her up here, protesting all the way.

What are you afraid of?

Heights No, what are you afraid of?

You...

You shouldn't be. You're perfectly safe. I will not hurt you, Jewls.

I blinked away some tears. I had hurt her. I had broken my promise and broken her. And in the process I had broken myself. And now there was nothing.

Nothing to live for.

I closed my eyes, and stood up. The carriage rocked again furiously in the wind, but I was not afraid.

Not in the slightest.

An extra strong gust nearly knocked me over the top of the metal safety bar and reflexively I sat back down, holding onto the sides for support. This was not going to be as easy as I had originally thought. A person's natural instinct is not self-destruction, even at their lowest and there was a part of my mind and body fighting back against my wish to end it all.

"Micah...?"

I looked down at the ground to find Nic and Eli standing with Alex looking up at me. I let out a sigh. d.a.m.n it hadn't thought they would realise where I was.

"What are you doing here...?" I asked wearily.

"What are you doing up there? It's dangerous in this weather." Nic said. "Come down, bro. we'll talk."

"What can you say that can fix this, Nic?" I asked. I knew the answer was nothing, but something in me needed him to admit that. Needed him to acknowledge that my life had ceased to be a life.

"Micah, get your b.u.t.t off that big wheel and get down here, now." Eli shouted up. Trust him to be so abrupt, so blunt. No tip-toeing around my feelings from him. The thought made me smile.

"Can't do that, bro." I shouted back.

"Where's the f.u.c.king controls for this thing?" he snapped at Alex and Alex shook his head.

"He keeps standing up. You press the control, the ride will jolt, might knock him off. You're gonna have to talk him down."

"Micah, stop f.u.c.king around! Please, come down and talk to us, we can work something out."

"Can you bring Marco back?"

Eli looked at Nic and then back up at me. "I wish to Christ I could. I do not want to lose another brother. You don't want to do this."

"Yes I f.u.c.king do!" I yelled, the desperation kicking back in. With all my heart I wished I had just come up here and jumped straight off, before anyone even realised where I was. I didn't want them to witness this, but getting down meant choosing life and I didn't have a life I wanted. I didn't have anything. I had to make them see, make them understand.

"I can't live like this anymore, don't you get that? I can't stand it, I can't! I look in the mirror and you know what I see? A ghost! I see Marco looking back at me. And I know that for all of you...having to look at me is like seeing him still here, but knowing he isn't. I have become a walking reminder of what we lost! A shadow, a bad memory of the worst time of your lives. I'm not me anymore! I'm Marco's ghost! That's it, that's all! And I know if you were all honest, you would be better off if you didn't have to look at me every day. You would be better off if I wasn't here. Deny it all you want, but I see it. I can't even bear to look at my reflection. I can't move on cause he's still with me, he is me! I don't want to live like this!"

"Oh, Micah..." Nic said, "You're not...not a shadow. You're Micah, our brother in your own right. It's early days, everything is still raw. But we can get through this, together."

"Get through it to what?" I sobbed. "You have Jenna. And you Eli...you have Lisa." I was crying so hard it was becoming very hard to get my words out. My breath hitched between each word, strangled sobs caught in my throat.

"He took...my brother...from me. He...he murdered him...thinking...thinking it was me. He did it because he...didn't want me and Jewls...to be...together. And the worst thing is...he's dead...but he still managed it. I lost my brother, the restaurant...and the love of my life. I lost her, she hates me!"

"She does not hate you, she loves you!"

I looked back down at the ground, my eyes wide as I realised who had said that. I swallowed, surprised and overwhelmed to see her there. "Jewls..."

Jewls Mari and I arrived at the park to find Nic and Eli already there, standing looking up at the big wheel talking to Micah. My heart sank when I saw him. I could hear him sobbing not crying, sobbing and his face was the very picture of pain and anguish. He was broken.

Hearing him say that she hates me I felt something inside me crumble, and more than anything I wanted him to know that wasn't true. He had to know, even if I didn't know myself what to do next, he had to know that I loved him; I felt that with everything inside me.

He just looked at me, his eyes wide. We all just looked up at him as he looked down on us, and it was quiet, deathly quiet. The snow falling over the park would have been, in any other circ.u.mstances, quite spectacularly beautiful, but in this moment all I could think was it was bitterly cold and windy and being up there, any moment he could fall and no one would survive a fall like that.

I had to get him down on the ground.

"Let us get you down, yeah? And me and you...we'll talk."

"You don't want to talk to me. You're here because you're doing the right thing. Go home Jewls. It's not your responsibility. This falls on me, all of it. I need you all to leave, now. You've seen enough tragedy; you don't need to see any more."

"And we won't, if you come down. Please Micah, talk to me."

"Would you want to talk to me if I wasn't up here, ready to...to...?"

"Yes," I said immediately. "Yes, I would. I do. Because d.a.m.n it, we've been through too much to leave it like this. I'm not saying I'm here to take you back. Honestly? I don't know if we can get back what we had. All I know...is that I still love you, and I'm willing to talk, to try. Are you? If we let him win...if you do this...then I might as well have just left with him. If you come down and talk to me...I promise you will not regret it."

"But Jewls, you said-"

"I know what I said! I was hurt, Micah! The past few weeks...have been a living h.e.l.l. But you're still here and so am I." I began to cry too, and I felt my whole body shake with the sobs. Instinctively my hand moved to my stomach, cradling the lives growing in there. I was so close to telling him, but I didn't want it to be like that, with Micah up there. And, I suppose, a part of me needed to know that I, and I alone, was enough that he wouldn't want to die.

Because I had already decided that there was no way I was leaving. That if he still wanted me, I was his, his forever. I was just afraid I had left it too late to realise that.

With that thought I finally lost my patience. Put it down to tiredness, hormones, whatever, suddenly I just couldn't stand it any longer.

"G.o.d d.a.m.n it Micah Machvaya! You get your backside down here, right now, or so help me G.o.d I will climb that d.a.m.n thing and drag you down here!"

Every pair of eyes turned to me then, stunned at my forceful tone. It surprised me if I am honest. A glance at my mother and all I saw in her eyes was awe and something that looked like pride. I had finally found my voice, and for her as my mum it must have been one of those finally moments. I was fighting for my man and I think she understood that.

Micah just stared down at me for a moment, before he shook it off. "You hate heights. You're scared of heights."

"There are scarier things in the world..."

"Like what?"

"Like facing a future without the love of my life by my side. Whatever emotions I'm feeling right now fear, grief, pain none of those emotions is stronger than my love for you. You once asked me to marry you. Do you still love me that much?"

He nodded, at first slowly and then more erratically. "More than ever..."

Keeping my eyes on Micah, I raised a hand towards Alex, gesturing for him to hit the b.u.t.ton.

"Keep your hand on the bar, babe and hold on, okay? We're gonna get you down, alright?"