I was completely uninvolved.  I don’t even own a gun; I could never kill a person.  I could never kill my own wife.  It had to have been him.  I would never do this.
     “Hey, what are you doing up there?”  Suddenly this pale girl, about nineteen, appeared.  Her legs were skinny, her eyes dark and confusing, and between her fingers, she held an unlit cigarette.  “You should really get down from there.”
     Somehow, I had gotten to the top of my apartment building, and I was standing a few inches from the edge.  He must have brought me here.  I stumbled back into a gray puddle and tried to remember seeing the rain.  The whole day had been this misty blur; it felt like I never woke up.  Of course I did – I walked through Times Square with a bag of M&M’s around noon – but I could hardly recall.  Finding her must have wiped my memory clean.
     “You live in this building?”  The girl came closer, and I could now see that her collarbone was severely bruised.  She wore a gray hoodie over a dark green party dress and hopped over puddles barefoot.  She sucked on that cigarette for a while and exaggeratedly exhaled.  She stared up at the eternal bright lights of the city, and I saw the sparkle of expectation reflected in her eyes. 
     I finally awoke from my daze and answered, “Yeah, I do.  Fourth floor.”  Eventually, she sat on the ledge and let her legs hang off the sides.  Her knees looked like my wife’s.  “So you can sit on the edge, but I can’t?”
     “You weren’t sitting, you were standing.  And you looked like you were about to jump.  God, if you’re gonna kill yourself, you might as well make it creative.  Everyone jumps off buildings.  You really want some homeless man to find your cold, lifeless body and rummage through your coat pockets for cash to buy heroine?  You really wanna be reduced to that?  If I wanted to die, I’d stick my fingers in an outlet and shock myself to death.  At least then I’d feel something.”
     It was pretty cold, and she didn’t have a lot of clothing on.  I saw her shoulders sort of shiver, and goose bumps rose on her arms, the way my wife’s did in movie theatres.  “You want my coat?”
     “No, I want you to tell me why you want to kill yourself.  I find this stuff just fascinating.”  Her voice was kind of scratchy, like she was hoarse, but there was something charming about it.  She was awfully pushy for a girl I’d just met, and I felt like I was being interrogated.  But I looked over at her freckled face and raised eyebrows, and saw no signs of conceding.
     “Geez, I already told you, I wasn’t trying to kill myself.  I don’t even know how I got up here.”
     “You don’t know or you don’t want to remember?”
     It had to have been him.  It just must have.  “I don’t – well, I’m not sure, maybe both?  You know, you are quite nosy.”
     “What, like I’m gonna stand here smoking and pretend you aren’t even there?  I’m just asking questions, you don’t have to answer if you don’t want.  But I think you’re interesting.  I think it’s always interesting, you know, talking to strangers.”
     “Alright.  Well, can I try?” 
     “Shoot.”
     “Do you live in this building?  How come you are so dressed up?  Were you at a party or something?  And what’s that thing on your collarbone?”
     “Slow down, Sherlock.  One question at a time.  Yeah, I live here.  Just moved in with my boyfriend actually.  What was the next question?”
     “Your bruise, where did it come from?”
     She began lighting a second cigarette, and the smell drifted into my nostrils.  I felt nauseous.  “Uh, well I was, uh– um, I – well, you know how I said you didn’t have to answer all my questions?  Yeah, I’m skipping this one.”
     I nodded, trying to be understanding, and licked my chapped lips.  It was windy since we were so high up, and my ears were beginning to hurt they were so cold.  I pulled out a black sock hat and shoved my hands back in my pockets.  “So, your outfit.”
     “Oh yeah, I’m having this party thing with my boyfriend.  It’s stupid.”
     “Then why are you having it?”
     She shrugged her shoulders and pulled her hair behind her ears.  She had five or six piercings along her left ear and her nails were painted black.  “He wanted to.  He wants to impress all his stupid hipster friends with how he has his life so together, and I guess hosting a dinner party is the best way to demonstrate that?  I don’t know, he’s kind of a pretentious asshole.  But I love him, so, you know, what can I do?”
     “That’s how my wife is too.  She always worries about if all the cutlery matches and where people sit at dinner parties.  We were actually supposed to have a get-together tonight, too.  I went to that big M&M store in Times Square just to get this special flavor that she loves.  Dark Chocolate Cherry.  They only carry them there.  I’ve lived in New York all my life, but she grew up in Minnesota, and she just loves Times Square and Broadway and all the cliché things.  She doesn’t understand why I avoid it at all costs.  She’s very particular, it’s kind of funny.  But, I don’t know, I’m glad she’s my wife, you know that?  I love her a lot.”
     “Where is she tonight?”
     “Oh, she’s in the apartment.  Lying on the floor.  Dead.”
     She didn’t say much, she just stared at me, mouth agape, eyes wide.  And suddenly she grabbed me tightly around the neck.  She hugged me and I could smell vanilla on her neck and vodka on her breath, the way my wife smelled the first night we met.  “Do you know what happened?”
     I gulped in a mouthful of air and felt my cheeks getting warm.  “I think she was murdered.”
     “Oh God, I’m so…have you called the police?  You really ought to call the –”
     “No, no that’s not necessary.  I think I know who did it.”
     “What?  Oh my God, you’ve got to call.”
     “No.  I want to kill him myself.  I want to wring his neck until he can’t speak, I want to shoot him until his heart can’t beat, I want his blood dripping off my hands.”
     She let out an uncomfortable nervous laugh and stepped away from me.  I knew I was scaring her, but once I got started I couldn’t stop.  “You know, he’s been stalking me for quite some time.  I see him down the hall when I’m going into my apartment, but he doesn’t even live here.  I see him on the streets, at the grocery – in a city as big as New York, you’d think I’d be able to hide from him.  But no, he always finds me.  And when I go to confront him, he disappears in the blink of an eye.  Like he’s just in my imagination.  But now I know he’s out to get me.  I’m not crazy – I’m not! He killed my wife.  I didn’t kill Amelia, he did!  He killed her!  He killed her!”
     “Shhh, it’s okay, it’s okay.”  She held me in her arms and stroked my cheek.  I’d started crying, and she wiped my tears away.  I could just tell – she understood.  She looked at me with these moon eyes and I could feel myself melt into them.  It still hurt, seeing the red stains in the crevices of my palms, seeing the moment replay over and over in my black and white mind, but it hurt a little less looking at her.  “I’m gonna tell you about my bruise.”
     “You don’t have to do that.”
     “No, I want to.  You were brave enough to tell me your secret, so I wanna share something too.  So, uh, my dad, he’s kind of a big deal in the theatre scene or whatever.  He is a producer or something pretentious.  I mean he doesn’t have any actual talent, but apparently he can tell what will sell.  So, anyway, my family has money.  And when I was really little, my parents were grooming me to be this Ivy League snob, but that’s not really me.  And eventually, they sort of realized that.  So then it was on to NYU and art school, because one time my dad found a doodle I’d drawn over some history notes.  He said it was amazing.  I think he just desperately needed me to be something.  But I wasn’t, I’m not anything, and I don’t want to be.  But anyway, he gave me this trust fund, for my college education, you know.  And he started it when I was young, so it couldn’t be accessed until I turned eighteen.  Well, here I am, almost twenty years old, and I’m not the perfect child he wanted.  I’m not going to college, and I’m living with my boyfriend, and I’m using his money and there’s nothing he can do about it.  So he’s kind of understandably pissed off.  Anyway, last time I went home, which was a week or two ago, he and I started arguing about the whole thing, he got angry, and…well, you know the rest.”
     “God, I’m so sorry.”
     “Well it’s not like I’m the most virtuous daughter, but he’s still kind of an ass.  I know my situation is nothing compared to yours, but I don’t know, I just thought that maybe –”
     “Thank you.”  I touched her shoulder lightly and held her gaze.  She nodded, with a half smile, and twirled a piece of hair around her finger.  “You remind me of her.  I’m sorry if that’s weird for you to hear, but it’s true.  The way the sides of your mouth turn up when you talk, the milky color of your eyes, the soothing coldness of your fingers.”  I looked over at her and she was looking back at me, her head cocked to the side and her lips pursed.  I knew I had said too much.  “I’m sorry, please forgive me…sorry, what’s your name?”
     “I’m Andie.”
     “Jamie.  Look, I know you are having a party, but do you want to sneak out and get a cup of coffee or something?”
     She smiled, put out her cigarette, zipped up her jacket, and walked beside me down the steps, through the building, and out into the city.  I could tell that the gray streets and yellow lights still filled her lungs with a tingling sensation she couldn’t yet recognize as anticipation, while I’d become numb to it years ago.  But in a city that wasn’t exactly uncaring, but distinguishably cold, it was nice to feel her warmth burning into me. 
     We talked for an hour or so, until she had to return to the party.  Something about her made my heart hurt – I wanted to be able to save her from the stalkers and the haziness and the ledges.  I wanted to protect her undamaged mind from ever twisting into something that resembled mine.  But she was the kind of girl who wouldn’t accept help, and she didn’t need it, either – she could handle herself.  And looking at her, I could feel the whole world fall apart, and then build back up again.
     We stood outside the door to her apartment and she thanked me for the latte.  But I didn’t want her to leave, I didn’t want to lose her.  I’d already lost so much and she was the only thing I had left.  She could see the panic on my face so she hugged me again and whispered, “It’s all going to be okay, Jamie.” 
     She whipped her dark brown hair as she turned to go, but just before she closed the door, I confessed, “Amelia, I’m sorry.”
     She smiled sadly and kissed me on the cheek.  “I forgive you, Jamie.”  And in just a moment, she was gone.