Beyond the Broken Angel

CHAPTER FIFTY

***DISCLAIMER: This chapter talks of suicide and death.***

— bannister bridge —

July 4th, 2027
11:01 pm

GISELLE HELD WILDFLOWERS in her hand as she looked down from her spot on Bannister Bridge towards the river below her.

She had picked the wildflowers from the same spot at the front of Dare Manor that Barbara had picked from on the day of her wedding.

She looked down at the flowers, briefly wondering if they were the descendants of the same flowers that had been in her bouquet. It would be more symbolic if they were.

Tears welled in her eyes as she gripped onto the bouquet, the warm-toned streetlight to her right dampening the vibrant blues and pinks of the petals.

"Oh, Will," she sighed, turning her gaze back to the river. "I love you."

She imagined him standing in the same spot she was in, eighty years between them. Living parallel to each other, never to intersect ever again.

A deep, aching grief gripped at her stomach, making her feel nauseous. She pressed the back of her hand to her mouth, closing her eyes as she tried to focus on her breathing.

She was used to this feeling. It came and went in waves since the night she had last seen Will.

It had gotten easier to coexist with in time, but the feeling never lessened. She didn't think it would ever lessen.

When her gut settled, she moved her hand away and looked back to the river.

"Um, hey, Will," she said, her jaw trembling as she tried to keep her tears at bay. "I, uh, I miss you. Liam misses you—even though he's never met you, he still misses you. I tried explaining everything to him, but I don't think he really gets it, you know?" She dug her fingernail into a stem in the bouquet, feeling her tears finally slip down her cheeks. "I'm actually mad at you right now," she revealed. "Really, really mad. Why would you do this? How could you do this?"

She pressed a hand over her forehead, sniffling. "Gosh, it breaks my heart knowing that you felt so awful and so hopeless that you thought you had to do this. You didn't have to, Will. You were supposed to go out and live, to try and be . . . happy—" her voice broke on the word, sobs taking over her speech.

She smushed the bouquet to her chest, turning around to lean her back against the railing as she cried into the foggy, night air.

"Why?!" she yelled out. "Why?!"

Her own echo answered her back, making her feel more alone than ever. She cried until she couldn't anymore, her lungs spasming, causing her breath to hitch as her tears ran out.

She stared down at the crumpled bouquet in her hand, picturing the matching bouquet from years earlier, the one that had walked down the aisle with her to greet her husband.

Her heart burned thinking of the memory, and she wished nothing more than to go back in time to that moment, when Will was smiling and happy and alive.

But as she turned around and held her bouquet out over the river, she knew that that would never happen.

With a broken heart, she released the flowers, watching them fall and disappear into the merciless rapids below—just the way she imagined her husband had disappeared eighty years before.

• — • — •

July 4th, 1947
11:01 pm