Emma was trembling. She truly did not know what she was doing there beside this man when she should have gone back to the bridge and finally thrown herself over the edge.

Several minutes passed without either of them saying a word. Alder was trying to remain calm, but he felt deeply uneasy at having a woman sitting there beside him. A young woman, no less…

At last, Emma spoke to him.

"A little while ago, I tried to kill myself."

When he heard that, he looked at her with profound sadness and closed his eyes in pain. The problem was no longer that a woman was speaking to him, though that was part of it. The problem was what he had just heard. Alder shuddered but quickly composed himself and looked straight ahead again. She continued:

"It’s the third time I’ve tried, you know?"

The man swallowed hard. Having a woman so close was difficult enough; now there was everything he was hearing as well. He sighed and replied without lowering his elbows from the back of the bench or looking at her directly:

"You don’t have the nerve."

"That’s right."

"I see."

"The first time was with pills," she began, also staring straight ahead. "My mother’s sleeping pills. There weren’t many left in the bottle, so it wasn’t enough. Like, I swallowed them all at once, you know? Like… my father found me in bed with foam coming out of my mouth, like, and… well, they took me to the ER."

She stopped. Why was she telling this guy all of that? she wondered. She felt an urge to stand up immediately and run back to the bridge. Maybe now she would find the courage she had lacked an hour earlier.

"Anyway," she continued, "at the ER they told me… like, even if I’d taken the whole bottle, like… I still wouldn’t have died."

"They were weak pills," he replied, turning slightly toward her without looking at her directly.

"They’re good pills, like, for her anxiety and stuff… but not for killing yourself. For that you need different ones, like… the kind they won’t give you without a prescription."

"You tried, didn’t you?"

"Yeah, of course, a few days later. But like I said, they won’t give them to you without a prescription."

The man sighed and kept looking straight ahead.

"The second time, like… I was more direct. I cut my wrists. Look." She showed him her left wrist, edging a little closer. The nearest streetlight was some distance away, and the scars—grooves running along her arms—were hard to see. "But that didn’t work either, like… Honestly, it’s harder than it looks…"

The wanderer turned and now looked directly at her, though he did not move closer. His natural aversion to women had almost vanished. The problem was far more serious now, though his naturally measured manner kept him from reacting more openly. In fact, despite everything—and to his own surprise—he seemed far too calm. He was simply letting himself be carried along.

"The third time was a little while ago," she continued.

"At the bridge?"

"Yeah, like…"

"It isn’t a very high bridge."

"Like, I think it’s high enough."

"What stopped you?"

"Fear, I guess."

"Fear… of what?"

"Like… I guess I was afraid it wouldn’t work. Afraid I’d end up paralyzed and suffer even more than I already do, like… If my life is already hell, like, I don’t even want to imagine what it would be like if, on top of that, like, I had to live in a wheelchair…, or something worse."

"Hey, have you ever counted how many times you can say ‘like’ in one minute?"

"What?"

"You say it a lot."

"Say what?"

"Like."

"Really?"

"No. ‘Like.’"

Emma smiled. "I meant, are you serious?"

"Oh! Then yes. I’d say it slips out… about once every five seconds, on average."

Emma smiled again, more openly this time, and realized it was the second time she had done so. Something that had not happened in a very long time.

"Yeah, maybe I do say it a lot." She shrugged. "But not much more than people my age, like…"

"There you go again."

"Does it bother you? Like…"

"No. Nothing bothers me anymore. I only bother myself."

"Have you tried to kill yourself too?"

"No. I’m already dead."

"Why do you say that?"

"Look at me. Don't I look like a living dead?"

Emma looked more closely. The man was certainly older, though he had no gray hair, was not bald, and did not have too many wrinkles. In fact, she considered for a moment that he must have been fairly handsome when he was young: wavy brown hair still framed gentle features, and he was tall. Yet his disheveled appearance, dirty hair, five-day beard on a gaunt face, broken shoes, and old, neglected clothes… Alder looked like a vagrant. One of those homeless men you saw downtown sleeping on cardboard. Curiously, he did not smell at all, though people like that usually gave off a stench that made you cover your nose. There was not even any odor when he moved his arms to settle them more comfortably along the back of the bench.

That fact, together with his gentle expression and something she could not explain, kept her from feeling the revulsion she otherwise should have felt.

"What’s your name?" she asked.

"Alder."

"I’ve never heard that name before, like…"

"I know. It isn’t very common. What about you?"

"Emma. My name is common, like… Everything about me is ordinary. There’s nothing special about me, like…"

"Your youth."

"What?"

"Your youth is remarkable… and enviable. How old are you?"

"Sixteen."

He smiled and added, "If only I were sixteen again! You’re to be envied!"

Emma laughed again and realized it was the third time she had done so in just a few minutes. She was not used to compliments, much less to possessing anything that others might envy.