August 18th, 2017 was the day of my third and last suicide attempt.

My method of choice was swallowing a full bottle of antidepressants and peacefully dying in my sleep . I never expected to wake up, but somehow, hours later, my sore eyes opened.  My apartment, usually crowded with my three brothers, father and I, was empty. I went downstairs to look for them only to discover my entire apartment building was abandoned. Naturally I became concerned and ventured into the usually bustling New York City streets but they too were desolate.
Anxiety engulfed me after hours of aimless wandering. With my thoughts becoming cloudy, I knew there was only one place where I could clear my head. Since I was little I had a habit of seeking comfort in the highest possible point off the ground. I ran 17 blocks to the abandoned Empire State Building and took the elevator straight to the 103rd floor.
I began to calm down after overlooking the empty city from the rooftop. Someone will come, I thought.
The next day I tried to leave New York and find help. I stole my father’s car and attempted to drive away, but somehow ended up right back into the heart of Manhattan. I knew I wasn’t lost, either. I’ve lived here all my life and knew every turn and every bump in the road. But every time I rounded the last turn that exited New York, I appeared back in my starting place.
Someone has to some I thought, I can’t be the only one left.

But here I am two years later.
Alone.
I live in the building now, since it was too painful for me to stay in the empty apartment. For unknown reasons, the elevator works fine, as well as the heating and sewage system. The television in the lobby doesn’t work and neither does my laptop or cell phones, but the nearby bookstore keeps me entertained. I eat canned food from the grocery stores on the rare occasion I get hungry, but lately days can pass before I feel my stomach ache for food.
One night I was eating a cold dinner of canned black beans when I heard a sound I hadn’t in years. The sound of loud folk music being played below startles me and I lean over to search for the source. The streets are still seemingly empty, but I rush to the bottom floor of my building to investigate.
The moment I reach the sidewalk the music stops and leaves me to wonder if I was going crazy and had imagined the whole thing. I head back to the top floor and wait another hour or so to see if the music returns, but it doesn’t, so I call it a night and go to sleep in my makeshift lobby bed.

The same folk melody from the previous night rings through the silent city and wakes me up me the next morning. Determined to find the source before it stops, I shoot out of bed and rush down to the bottom floor, not taking time to put on a jacket or even shoes. I sprint out the door and run left, following the sound. It gets louder as I near what must be the origin. Block by block, the volume increases until I see what must be the birthplace of the music; the radio tower. I stop running and catch my breath, looking up at the tower and covering my ears in an attempt to drown out the deafening sound. Once I’m sure my eardrums are ready to explode, the music shuts off and the building door suddenly slams open.

Out walks a girl.

She’s wearing a loose brown shirt and dark red skinny jeans over her thin body. Her long, curly auburn hair is the same shade as her freckles and her eyes are the most beautiful, yet peculiar shade of both green and blue.
“Took you long enough,” She says with a hint of impatience.
“What?” My voice cracks from lack of use.
“I thought I was going to have to go out there and find you instead of letting you find me.” She replies.
“What?” I say, almost angrily, “How long have you been here?”
“At least as long as you have.”
I was mad now. All this time I thought I was alone. “Why did you never tell me you were here?”
“Well,” she begins, “Among other things, I had to make sure you weren’t dangerous. Clearly I had nothing to worry about, considering up close you look borderline anorexic.”
Her casual insult stings, but I have so many questions, like why we were both here, where everyone else went and why I couldn’t leave. But the first one I had to ask was,
“You were following me?”
“Watching, more like,” she calmly states.. “Like I said, I don’t know you, and I don’t know what you did to get here, so I needed to play it safe.”
“What do you mean, ‘what I did to get here’?”
A frown crosses her face as she realizes I don’t understand.
She sighs. “Okay, I see. Come inside and we can talk.”
The inside of the radio tower is fixed into a makeshift bedroom with a futon laying on the floor. Dirty paper plates and half full glasses of water crowd the area near the bed, with her sheets tangled up on top of the mattress. The place isn’t completely trashed, but it isn’t nearly as clean as I like to keep my living area.
She sits down on the mattress and crosses her legs, then looks up at me expectantly. “Let’s start with getting to know each other,” she says, “what’s your name?”
“Carter,” I reply, “what’s yours?”
“Scarlett.”
“Have you managed to leave the city yet?” I ask.
Scarlett looks confused. “What do you mean?”
“I mean have you seen anyone else or been able to leave or at least get in contact with anyone else?”
A sad smile comes across Scarlett’s face. “Oh dear, you haven’t realized it, have you?”
By now I’m tired of secrets being kept from me.  “Know what?” I can hear myself yelling.

“Well, it’s certainly not my place to tell you, it just doesn’t work that way. Someday you’ll realize it, but I can’t directly tell you and that’s the last of it.” Her tone tells me I’m not getting anymore information from her so I stop trying to and change the subject.
“So”, I try to think of a topic, “what do you like to do?”
She gives a three word answer. “Read. Explore. Run.”
I smile “In that case, I challenge you to a race to Times Square.”
She smiles back and I bolt out the door with her on my heels.

I completely forgot I wasn’t wearing shoes, so the run is slightly harder, but I still know I can win. We take different routes, each about the same distance from our destination. I don’t know how fast she is, but I know how fast I am. The only thing I’ve ever been really good at is track and there’s no way I’m letting a girl in skinny jeans who I just met beat me at my own game; barefoot or not.

Thirty-five blocks later I arrive in the center of Times Square without Scarlett in sight. Trying to catch my breath, I sit on the empty curb and wait for my new friend to arrive. Not even five seconds later, Scarlett comes prancing up to me with a smile on her face.
“What are you smiling about, loser?” I say jokingly.
“I’m smiling because you’re out of breath” she fires back, without a drop of sweat on her face.
“You just ran almost forty blocks and you’re not even sweating? What are you, superhuman or something?”
A sad look crosses her face and she mumbles something. “Hard to be out of breath when there’s none left in you.”
“What does that mean?” I ask, confused.
She seems to snap out of it. “You’ll see, for now let’s focus on something else. What’s your favorite movie?” she asks, motioning to the bookstore behind her.

We run into blockbuster and grab a couple of cheesy action movies, but don’t actually watch any of them. We stay up almost all night talking; which feels almost foreign after being alone for so long.
We hang out with each other more and more over the following six days and I can feel myself beginning to fall in love with Scarlett. On the seventh night, August 17th, the night before the three year anniversary of that day I woke up seemingly alone, Scarlett and I head to the roof of the Empire State Building. For hours we lay on the roof in the night air, talking about our life before. Scarlett too had attempted suicide only to awaken solitary in her bedroom. She never goes into detail about her reasons for trying to off herself and neither do I. We understand deep enough to not need to discuss it.
Scarlett leans over and kisses me lightly on the forehead before rolling on her side and falling asleep next to me.

The next thing I know I’m lying in my old bed in my old apartment. My room looks exactly the same as it did that fateful day I last saw it and my bed sheets look clean. Startled, I sit up and hear the sounds of my brothers talking to each other and my dad laughing from what sounds like a phone conversation. I rush into the living room and hug my brother Andre but he continues the conversation as though I don’t exist. I turn around to hug my dad but he too acts like I’m not in the room.
I try for several minutes to win their attention but am interrupted by the sound of the same folk tune I have now come to associate with Scarlett. Knowing I need an explanation, I follow the noise and take the elevator down the extremely busy building to the bottom floor. The New York City streets are once again packed with people, but no one will make eye contact with me. I purposefully bump into a man in hopes of getting a reply, but he continues walking without so much as looking back. I shoulder the next woman I see but she brushes it off and keeps walking without ever acknowledging my existence.
The folk music finally stops when I spot Scarlett’s bright auburn hair and dark clothes in the crowd. She is walking away from me about 50 yards ahead. I run through the crowd to catch up with her and shoulder through dozens of people, not that any of them notice. Finally I reach her and tap her on the shoulder. She turns around and gives me a rare smile and silently motions with her index finger for me to follow her.
I follow as instructed but struggle to keep with her pace. She quickly boards a bus and I barely make it on before it departs. Scarlett runs through the crowd to the back of the bus and I lose her in the close quarters, so I decide to wait for the bus to stop then look for her as people exit.
Ten minutes later, the bus makes a stop and I see Scarlett get off with a smile still on her face. She runs down the block then makes a left before I can reach her. I sprint down the street and follow her path before I catch sight of her again. This time, she’s far away and sitting on something in what looks like a park of some kind. As I get closer to her, I suddenly realize she’s in a cemetery and sitting on a grave memorial of some kind.
I finally reach Scarlett and stand just feet away from her when I realize that she’s crying and pointing at something on the grave neighboring the one she sits on.

My heart stops as I read the names on the two graves.

Scarlett Kessler     Carter Bridgewater
December 5th, 1999-August 15th, 2017  April 12th,2000-August 18th, 2017