Thanks for Pushing Me Off the Roof Chapter 07
Maren’s POV
Declan stands off to the side, cold-eyed, and throws a stack of bills in Fern’s face. “Three years. We spent thirty grand on you. Bags, trips,
dinners. My family is about to lose everything. Pay it back.”
Fern is still clawing at Nash’s hands, gasping. “I don’t have it. You gave me that money. Nobody forced you.”
“Nobody forced us?” Declan steps forward and hits her across the face. “You spent three years playing the damsel and stringing us along like we were complete idiots. You think that doesn’t count?”
All three of them go at it right there in the hallway. Whatever was left between them is gone.
Without me there to run interference, that whole bond they thought they had shatters the second it actually costs something.
Fern screams and scratches Nash’s face, bites down on Declan’s arm.
“You were the ones who changed the applications! Nobody made you do that! Why is any of this my fault?” she shrieks.
That sets them off.
They’d spent all this time thinking they were the heroes of this story. Turned out they were the punchline.
Nash grabs her by the hair, eyes red, his voice dropping to something that doesn’t sound like him anymore. “Fine. If we’re all going down, we’re going down together. Get up to the roof. All of us. Right now. We’re not done.”
The rooftop is abandoned. The wind up here is brutal, the kind that makes you squint just to see straight.
This is where I died in my past life. The whole thing has come full circle, except this time, the ones standing at the edge are them.
“Let go of me!” Fern digs in as Nash and Declan drag her toward the ledge. She looks down at the drop below and whatever fight was left in her drains out completely.
“You said we’d always stick together, remember?” Nash is covered in blood, smiling in a way that doesn’t look like smiling. “Maren’s not here. So it’s just us three now. You’re not gonna leave us too, are you?”
“You did this to us.” Declan is right there with him, voice cracking at the edges. “You owe us.”
Fern kicks Nash hard, right where it counts. His grip breaks.
Declan lunges for her. His foot slips.
Fern loses her balance completely. She goes over the ledge.
Then silence.
Nash and Declan sink down at the edge, staring at what’s below, neither of them able to move.
My dad calls when I’m already in first class, on my way to Boston.
“Maren. Something happened. Nash and Declan – they pushed Fern off the roof. She didn’t make it. Police have them both. They’re looking at murder charges. It’s over for them.”
There’s a heaviness in his voice. They were kids he watched grow up, after all.
I let the words land. Outside the window, the clouds are white and still.
I don’t feel much. Mostly, I feel like I can finally breathe.
Last time around, I died on that roof trying to save them. This time, I let go, stepped back, let things run their course – and it still ended in the same place. You can’t wake someone who’s pretending to sleep. And you can’t fix someone who’s rotten all the way through.
You’re an adult. You own what you do.
“I hear you, Dad. My voice comes out steady. “This is on them. Nobody else.” I hang up.
A flight attendant brings over a glass of champagne. I take it, settle back, let the quiet stretch out. Whatever was left over from my past life finally lets go.
September. Clear skies.
I wheel my suitcase through the gates of Harvard as the morning sun comes in low and bright. The campus is full of people, all of them bright-faced, all of them with somewhere to be.
I don’t look back. I just walk forward, leaving all of it behind, into the next chapter of my life.
