Suicide, Skittles and Skates [✓]

Chapter 01

CHAPTER ONE

'Told you I'd die without you,' Alex Bates thought to himself as he looked down at the platform beneath the roof he was standing on. He had climbed to the top of the ice skating rink he'd often gone to as a child and was now looking down at all the people rushing around below him.

He imagined what their expressions would be if he were to jump in front of the next departing train. He imagined the fall, those few moments of elation before the impact. He imagined his blood splattering on the windows, the crimson a vivid contrast against the bright white of the train.

It was almost funny how a place that held so many happy memories would also be the place he'd contemplate his death; the self-hatred in his mind complete juxtaposing the warmth his reminiscing would bring. He wasn't even entirely sure how he had ended up standing on the edge of the old building that overlooked one of the busiest train stations in London but couldn't find it in himself to leave.

The day had looked so warm in the morning, the sky clear and the sun shining. It was almost like a photograph of a magazine cut-out; a perfect day. Ha. Just as Alex's seemingly warm exterior was a facade for the ice within his heart, the air around him was freezing. The wind blew softly, whipping chocolate hair in and out of his eyes – the eyes that haunted him every time he looked in the mirror. Dark cobalt irises with almost-golden flecks in them, framed with dark lashes. Eyes he had shared with his twin sister Alice.

Eyes she would never open again.

It had been two months since the car accident that had taken her life, two agonising months of hiding the guilt that he felt. Of course everyone expected him to be sad, anyone would be after losing the only family member they had left. But what nobody realised was the downward spiral Alex had been in ever since. If only he hadn't been too stubborn to stop for directions, he wouldn't have had to ask her to look for the map they always kept in the backseat. And she wouldn't have taken off her seatbelt to reach for it.

If only.

The last thing he had said to her, just moments before the impact, had been a dramatized exclamation laced with sarcasm. 'Thanks, Alice. You know I'd just die without you, right?'

He couldn't even remember what they'd been talking about before that, but that simple phrase had haunted him ever since. Because it was true.

If they had just been regular siblings in a normal family maybe it wouldn't hurt so much, but they'd been twins. They did everything together, especially since their parents had passed away many years ago. That one had been a small local plane failure; it had gotten out of control and landed in the Atlantic Ocean on the way back from their parents' first holiday without the kids. Whilst the siblings were lucky enough to have an amazing aunt and uncle who stepped in and raised them, they had always thought of it as the two of them against the world. But now, Alice was gone and he was broken.

As Alex watched a guy in a business suit – obviously heading home from work – running on the platform to get to his train, he couldn't help thinking of transport. It was transport that had caused the death of the rest of his family members, so why not let a train be the cause of his?

He hadn't felt as empty after his parents' death, not like the way he felt now without Alice. They'd been twins, and had shared every experience and feeling together. As children, whenever they had complained about sharing their toys, their mother would say, "If you two could share a womb, then you can share everything else." Closer than best friends, Alice had always been there for every moment. Wasn't it only fair that he should be with her in death too?

He closed his eyes, letting the sound of the busy streets of London envelope him. It was at times like this that he finally felt at peace. The noise around him was loud enough to block out the screams of his dying twin sister that he still heard in his mind, over and over again.