Haley’s Bridgehanger

VVVVVVV (that IS the sound a vibrating phone makes)

It was 2:30AM when I awoke to the vibrating sounds of my phone. It was Elly. She was hysterical – crying and beyond the definition of upset. She told me to come to the pedestrian bridge immediately. I didn’t ask any questions but I had a bad notion of what was going on. When I arrived to the waterfront I was greeted by an endless crisscrossing of yellow tape, countless flashing lights, police, firetrucks, and an ambulance. There were even police boats stationed on the river. Elly and other friends of ours were talking to the authorities. The bridge was completely sealed off with yellow tape and blocked by police cruisers. The riverfront for that matter seemed tightly barred off. When Elly saw me she rushed over to me and fell into my arms. We embraced for some time as she sobbed deeply. She looked up, full of tears, and said, “Haley jumped.” My heart sank. I too started up with tears. Elly pointed out to the river where construction was under way for a new bridge and said, “She’s still over there…after she jumped she waded, or she floated, or I-I- well she drifted down to the construction areas, and she -I, I wanted to save her, I tried to save her, but Evan, he held me back, and I can’t stop, I mean she’s still there and they haven’t, they haven’t-” I stopped her there. She was so scared. I hugged her and wanted to tell her it was OK and everything was going to be alright, but the truth was I didn’t know…We all knew this bridge inside and outside, all of us. All we ever did was come to this bridge and walk around. We’d climb up and down, over and under ledges, go to beautiful spots despite the safety risk – we all flirted with death. But I knew Haley spent more time than any of us at the bridge. Elly and I walked over to Evan, who was sitting down on the pavement. He was completely paralyzed with fear, misery, and horrid distress. Evan quietly said, “My girlfriend, man….my girlfriend…Haley just..she just lunged off, you know? She screamed ‘I love you’ as she was falling. We were all up there, just walking, not another soul around but us. Everyone got a bit ahead of her as she kept dropping behind more and more, and then she jumped. All I, all we, could do was run to the rail and look over. I kept shouting to Haley, and I had to hold Elly back from jumping in after her. Jake called 911, and- …” Evan dropped his head and started to lose it. Elly and I sat down with Evan and she put her arm around him saying, “I love you twin brother. I love you so much. And Haley, she loves you so much.” Jake came over from a group of officers who were still asking him questions. Jake said, “Haley made…she made her way to where all the new bridge construction on the river is, there are some like..perma-bardges stationed. After she went off, we stayed up on the bridge trying to stay in sight of her through the dark of the night. She was too far in from both sides of the river for us to try anything from the shore without a boat. When the authorities got here they made us get off the bridge immediately and we’ve been down here since. We’ve been waiting for awhile…Haley hasn’t been responding to our yells, the cops keep pushing us back, and she’s…she’s still caught there on the construction, but she’s gotta be still…” Jake had to sit down too. We all just sat there, gloomy, overcome with grief, and powerless as we looked out on to the construction site on the river. But not two minutes later, the boats started making their way back to the shoreline and the ambulance moved into place to meet one of the boats coming from the construction site. We all stood up quickly and rushed towards the ambulance. We broke through the yellow tape, disregarded the police yelling at us, and rocketed passed the flashing lights. We wanted to see our friend. We wanted to know if Haley was still…alive.

And then I woke up.