A Party Trick at Thirty Thousand Feet Chapter 08

Rebecca’s face quickly turns purple as she desperately pounds Caleb’s arms with both hands.

Jonathan panics.

He and the nurses who rush in at the commotion struggle with all their might to pull Caleb away.

Even after being pinned to the floor, Caleb continues snarling like a wild beast.

Will enters the hospital room with the police.

He doesn’t even spare Rebecca a glance. Instead, he hands the officers all the evidence he’s

gathered.

Rebecca is arrested on the spot on suspicion of causing someone’s death through intentional harm.

Her family pulls every string they can to make the case disappear with money and connections.

They try to have the charges reduced to involuntary manslaughter.

But Will and Caleb throw all their business resources into the fight. They’re willing to risk bankrupting their companies if that’s what it takes to bring Rebecca and her entire family down.

The three men who once treated Rebecca like a princess now look at her as if she’s nothing but a

pile of garbage.

The trial drags on for six months, and the five–person group completely falls apart.

Jonathan develops severe psychological problems.

He can no longer sleep at night.

Every time he closes his eyes, he hears my voice over the radio, screaming, “There’s no handle!”

He starts drinking heavily.

One snowy winter night, completely drunk, he opens the balcony door of his second–floor

townhouse.

He looks down at the darkness below and gives a faint smile.

“Juli, I want to know how much it hurt.”

Then he jumps.

A fall from the second floor isn’t enough to kill him, but his spine is shattered, leaving him

permanently paralyzed from the waist down.

He spends the rest of his life confined to a wheelchair, tormented by his memories.

Caleb resigns as the company’s CEO.

He sells his mansion in Long Island and moves into the Brooklyn–apartment where I used to live.

He leaves every trace of my life exactly as it was.

Every morning, he makes two cups of coffee.

One goes in front of him. The other sits across from him in the empty chair.

He talks to the empty air.

“Juli, the snow finally stopped outside today.”

Halfway through his sentence, he suddenly falls silent.

Then he covers his face and breaks down in the morning sunlight, sobbing like a wounded animal.

A year later, Rebecca’s sentence is handed down.

She’s found guilty of intentionally causing harm resulting in death and sentenced to fifteen years in

prison.

As she’s led away from the courtroom, she looks back through her tears and screams toward the

gallery.

“Juli, I’m sorry! Please forgive me!“.

I float near the courtroom ceiling, looking down at her shaved head and ashen face.

All I feel is how ridiculous it is.

Will visits my grave every weekend.

He no longer wears his expensive custom Armani suits. Instead, he always shows up in a faded

shirt, carrying my favorite tulips.

He sits in front of my tombstone and carefully pulls out every weed growing around it.

“Juli, I was wrong.”

“I’ll give you my life in exchange. Just promise you’ll still call me your brother in your next life. Please?”

He takes out a dinner knife, presses it against his wrist, and cuts deep.

Blood pours out, staining the white marble of my tombstone.

He closes his eyes and collapses beside my grave.

Fortunately, a cemetery security guard finds him during his rounds and gets him to the hospital in

time.

But I know that for the rest of his life, he’ll remain trapped in a prison of guilt, one more painful

than death itself.

There will be no redemption for him.

Caleb goes to the mountains where I jumped.

He brings no winter gear, wearing only a thin white shirt.

In the middle of a raging blizzard, he slowly makes his way toward the highest cliff.

The snow reaches his waist.

Frost coats his eyelashes, and his lips have turned purple from the cold.

For the last time, I float in front of him.

He can’t see me, but he seems to sense something. He reaches out into the storm.

A strangely peaceful, almost unsettling smile spreads across his face.

“Juli, I’m not afraid of the cold anymore.”

“I’m coming to take you home.”

He closes his eyes, spreads his arms, and leaps.

His body disappears into the abyss like a weightless fallen leaf.

I don’t reach out to stop him.

I don’t even look back.

The resentment that has kept me bound to this world suddenly vanishes.

My soul feels lighter than it ever has before.

The love, betrayal, favoritism, and pain that once weighed so heavily on my heart finally come to an end.

As the first rays of sunlight break over the mountain peaks, I dissolve into countless invisible specks of light, carried away by the wind.