Only Dark Edges by Katie L. Carroll

Author:Katie L. Carroll
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: young adult, psychological thriller, Sapphic, grief, sibling loss, teen depression, teen suicide, Hamlet, Shakespeare retelling
Publisher: Shimmer Publications
Published: 2023-06-21T09:49:36+00:00

Chapter 25

Long Island Sound isn’t like open the ocean with splashing waves and choppy seas. During storms, you might get bigger waves that spray up onto the land, but that’s the exception. Rather than crashing, the waters of the Sound ripple with the ebb and flow of the tide. On clear days, the water can be still as glass, a perfect reflection of the world, with Long Island visible out beyond the water, to the point where you can pick out specific buildings.

Today the storm clouds create a dramatic backdrop for Long Island, the land more of a suggestion than a solid presence, a ghost of an island.

My skin is sticky with sweat, but I shiver all the same and pull my gaze away from the gray waters.

There’s one more staircase up, a spiraling wrought iron thing, more of a hazard than a viable way to get from one floor to the next. I chance it and make my way up and around to a trapdoor in the ceiling that I have to push on to open. I climb out and carefully lower the trapdoor before standing.

This top floor is open to the elements. It’s circular like the floor below but smaller. There is a rickety metal railing all the way around.

I don’t know if it’s the spiral staircase or the heights, but there’s a dizzying quality to this crow’s nest. This high up, the wind whips at my hair, smacking the tip of my ponytail against my cheek. It moans in an eerie, humanlike way and dries the sweat off my skin, raising goose bumps.

One of the railing posts rises up higher than the others as a flagpole. Remnants of a flag that is tattered beyond recognition flap against the pole. Up here, the climate is totally different than at beach level, energetic and hostile.

Despite feeling unmoored, I make my way to the railing and shake it to test the strength. Flakes of rust fly off under my hands, but otherwise the railing seems sound. I hold on tight and lean over with the top half of my body. The wind picks up, pulling and tearing at my tank top, my shorts flapping hard enough against my legs to sting. A rush of adrenaline shoots through my body. A voice whispers in my head.

Jump. Fly.

A part of me longs to fling a leg over the railing, cling to the outer edge, and lean out as far as I can, hands clinging to the railing my only anchor to this old beach house. To this old life.

The other part of me knows doing things like that is pure madness. It’s the kind of thing my friends are all afraid of me doing.

This part of me knows it’s cowardly and selfish to risk my life when Gemma no longer has a life to risk. It’s not fair to play such games. I have all the chances in the world when she has none. Why would I gamble so foolishly with them?

With

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