In my mind, it went like this.

The air was slightly chilled, gently turning the crashing waves below the edge of a rocky cliff. The moon was hung in the sky at a slight angle, at the awkward stage where it wasn't a crescent but still wasn't full. It provided the only light that illuminated the only living thing on the cliff's edge.

There was a girl standing at the top of the cliff, barefoot and wearing a dress that belonged at prom, not at the middle of nowhere at three in the morning. Her hair swayed in the wind, carefully pressed curls dancing in the breeze that intensified as she slowly approached the edge.

The scene was beautiful the same way that it was tragic. The redness of her dress seemed to glow in the moonlight, a bloody beacon in the sea of night. Her pale skin was luminous against the darkness of her hair. It was as if she were a magnet that drew the attention of every living creature.

The girl approached the cliff's edge, walking across tiny shards of rock. Pain never registered across her face; she was surprisingly serene as the pieces of rock pierced through the skin of her feet. No fear, no surprise. Only an impossible peace decorating her makeup-covered face.

The wind howled in warning as there was no more land for the girl to walk upon. She was standing inches away from a sudden drop. There was a pause, then, a brief moment of hesitation. And in my mind, I could see the choice that the girl was debating.

Not the choice of whether or not to jump; that had long ago been decided. But the choice of how to jump. To merely turn around and fall into the crashing ocean, allowing it to take her peacefully as a cruel imitation of all the times she had fell into the water at a pool as a child. Or to run off the edge, heart pumping violently, and brutally taking her own life.

The girl made the choice with a slight nod, and slowly backed away from the cliff's edge. The air released a deep sigh of relief, caressing the curls away from the girl's face. Then, the air was as still as the day that the world was first created.

And then, it wasn't.

The girl exploded into action, and it only took three steps.

One.

The waves pounded below, violently churning in protest. They roared in protest, but there was nothing they could do. Everything had already been done.

Two.

Her long red dress snapped around her heels, trailing behind her on the breeze that's chosen to accompany her to the end. To her end. The distant sound of seagulls crying mixed with sirens.

Three.

The girl launched herself off the cliff, pushing against the rocky ground. With a grace that had gone unnoticed all her life, the girl spun herself around so that she was facing the cliff's edge from which she had just jumped. And for a beautiful moment, she was suspended in the air, dress floating around her like a blood-soaked cloud. The velvety midnight air clung to her skin like a blanket as her eyes stared at the Earth.

But that moment ended, and time brutally resumed. The girl fell, her eyes full of rocks and sky and Moon. The girl wasn't flying; she never had been. The wind howled in premature grief as she plummeted to the singing sea below. She disappeared beneath the foamy waves with a splash, her red dress fading into the black sea.

It was poetic, that way; a scene worthy of any painting. But I wasn't there. No one was. For all I know, she could have just walked to the beach and walked into the waves until she drowned.

Like everyone else, I wasn't there the night that Maya Jackson killed herself. Like everyone else, I had been twelve miles away, at the homecoming dance before going home, asleep peacefully in my bed while she launched herself off a cliff. Like everyone else, I had no idea it was happening until after it happened.

But unlike everyone else, that was not the first time I had noticed Maya Jackson.