Choice
Sonni Simmons

Legs hang over the interstate overpass.
He lights a cigarette and thinks of the reasons for taking things so far, the feeling of feeling nothing at all. The night he nearly took his life.
Aiden stood here that night in the rain, the cars racing below his feet, watching the horizon bend into nothing.
“You think I give a shit?”
“Think about this.” The voice had surprised him. Aiden drew back a centimeter. He hadn’t noticed the red and blue lights of the police car.
“I have,” Aiden mumbled.
The officer blinked the rain from his eyes. “You have your life ahead of you. Whatever it is, this isn’t the answer.”
Aiden knew he couldn’t do it, not with someone watching. It didn’t feel right.
“You really think death would make everything better?” the officer asked from the front seat of the car. Aiden couldn’t find the will to answer. “What about your family?” Rain tapped the windshield as the silence settled over the streets. Aiden noticed the houses becoming more familiar before the car stopped at his address.
Family, Aiden thinks, as he flicks ash onto the highway below. Visions of his mother’s fragile face twist and split the night into one moment at a time.
During that night, Aiden faded in and out of a conversation of the plans for his future; a plan to keep him safe from himself. His mother had insisted on treatment.
She pretends to understand, but he has to admit the medicine helped. Sometimes.
The gusts of wind from passing cars blow his hair around his eyes. Rain falls, exactly as it had that night. The sound of rubber on soaked asphalt arises. The colors of twilight bleed into night, and the light of day is strangled by thick, black clouds.
Aiden remembers the feeling he had carried around for about a year before he decided he wanted to end it. Numbness. Anger. The words will never say enough. The loss of his father. Wrong choices became more and more appealing as he strayed farther away from the path he and his father had set for himself. He wasn’t able to make sense of anything anymore. He wanted to leave that mess behind.
But sometimes messes get cleaned up, Aiden thinks. He can see the water on the edges of the road, little rivers washing away the leaves and litter. They quickly slip into gutters and are enveloped by storm drains.
The smell of wet exhaust fumes and cigarette smoke fills the air. He doesn’t bring his hood up to cover his head as the water drips from the ends of his hair. The memory is burned into the atmosphere like ashes after a fire. Everything washes away with the rain. It falls harder around him as he kicks his legs once more over the blur of cars below. He tastes the toxins in his mouth, as bitter-sweet as the scene that played out here only a few months ago.
He flicks his cigarette and makes his choice.