Through the smoky air, her eyes darted downward and raced back up. She rocked forward onto the balls of her feet and then back on her heels repeatedly like a boat on choppy waves, stopping suddenly as she felt her heart rush out of her chest, shocking her veins, knowing she could have lost her balance. Her mouth filled with a tasteless dryness, and her stomach felt sick to the core. She shivered as the icy breath of the breeze brushed her face and whispered protests into her ears.
Looking down, she observed the array of cars skittering around on the street, people bustling around doing ordinary things like having a hot morning coffee and a crisp bagel before work or grabbing their belongings before skipping off to school.
She leaned farther over the edge of the twenty-story building, recalling the everyday things that she might never be able to do again. Wisps of hair tickled her cheeks, attempting to restrain her with their frail fingers. She gulped and embraced the air, filling her lungs with her last breath.
Her entire life, every piece of the broken puzzle that was her identity, from her history as an infant to the enigma of her future, stood frozen, growing smaller and smaller and smaller, becoming an infinitesimal speck that evanesced at the top of the building as she hurtled towards the ground.
A pounding fear welled up in her ears and stripped away her soul. She was a body and nothing else. The wind cried out...it was too late, too late.
Is it worth it?
Plunging faster, she felt her future evaporate. Everything she would have done. Everything she would have become. Too late, too late. It was all lost.
Was it worth it?
Lost. The word cannot describe how she felt as the ground came approached. Eyes squeezing shut, she waited for the excruciating pain and whatever would follow. The question still tugged at the back of her mind: Would it ever be worth it?
She never got an answer.

She was gone.

In a flash her mind returned, like a tape on rewind. She jerked up, eyes wide open, heart pumping, breath racing. She looked down. The echoes of honking cars reached her ears from the dark, endless well that was the ground. She wouldn’t sink to the bottom today. Not today. Not ever. She wasn’t ready to give up all the things she could do, the lives she would save, the person she would be. It just wasn’t worth it.
She stepped back and turned around. The edge of the building ebbed farther and farther away from her as she made her way to the fire escape. She didn’t looked back. She didn’t need to. She had her answer.
Life will become better. Suicide is never worth it.