The sky looked full enough to hold all the wetness in the world. I laughed, staring upwards, envisioning the rain falling onto my burning face, cooling it gradually, and taking away the fever that occupied my reflections. I welcomed the thought of precipitation, the last positive idea left to me. As the wind rushed past, I held within me the smiles of childhood, splashing through puddles, completely innocent of what lay beyond.

The cold seared a hole through my jeans, and I shifted on the stone bench. Any average passerby would believe I was just examining the view, but it seemed that only I knew the darker implications of the ravine. As always, I was alone.

The wind picked up even more, tearing salt-water from my eyes and making them sting. I blinked, ducking my head for a moment as my hair caught in the gusts, whipping the long, brown strands into my face. Just as average as the rest of me, my locks helped me blend into a crowd without struggle.

My hair took me onto another thought tangent, as I pulled it away from my eyes. All anyone had ever seemed to care about was hair…hair and boys that was. That I did not want a relationship, they said they understood. However, I had been constantly given unwarranted advice on the best way to style my locks, tagged in videos on Facebook, and mocked openly in work meetings.

Returning to the present, I gave up at the futility of holding my hair back, and I just let it wave, sighing slightly to myself. The tips of the strands slapped my face like miniature whips, but individually they did not hurt. Glancing down at the scars running up and down my arms, I wished I had brought the knife—anything to break the numbness I had encompassed myself in.

God had once held power over me, and looking back, I longed for those days again. I had feared Him, respected Him, and obeyed Him. However, after everything that had happened to me, I doubted at times that there truly was a God, let alone a God with my best interests at heart. Besides, when I pictured Heaven—a beautiful place filled with pleasures of all kinds, including huge green, growing plants, I smiled softly to myself. It was a place I could never hope to obtain entrance to. Besides, I had always had a sort-of demented love for fire. Perhaps the flames of hell would be a better place for me anyway.

For the final time, I tried to force myself to cry. Now that the original cause for pain was gone, dead, and buried, I attempted to melt the heart that I intentionally froze all those years ago. I challenged myself to break down the rocky walls that I built too high. I wanted to feel love and laughter and life again, and most of all, I wanted to be able to cry.

I wanted to unbury the painful memories that I built into that wall around my heart. I wanted to carry them with me, before eventually letting them go and spreading their ashes to the winds.

Tears finally slipped down my face, but I felt no emotional release. I knew that they were only caused by the storm’s gusts, and in any other place they would have been locked in the recesses of my eye cavities, leaving my face as dry as the bench I was sitting on.

I regretted that I had become this cold: this hard. I have attempted to break my walls before, scribbling them out onto paper, but such only seemed to cement them further. Writing my fancies down made them real, and I had never handled reality checks well.

Standing, I made my way over to the side of the drop, gauging the distance with a practiced eye. Like the Great Kate Weather Machine, I had always had a certain knack for being able to tell how far—or how long it would take—to fall.

If I was going to do the deed, this was the place to do it, I decided. The entire reason that I had kept living this long was to see the Grand Canyon, and now that I was here, I felt that there were no reasons left to me.

I wished I felt the pain of my actions.

I wished I regretted what I was about to do.

I wished I…

Wishes were no longer relevant, I realized. Alfred Lord Tennyson had written, “Theirs not to make reply,/ Theirs not to reason why,/Theirs but to do and die.”

Never before had this poem seemed so perfect.

I took a step forward.

Then another.

One more…

And then I was falling, falling, and somehow I pivoted to face the deepening gray sky. In that moment, I realized the irreversible effect of what I had done, and the walls began to crumble, breaking down around me.

A single tear, born of grief and regret and despair, slipped down my face, but it was too late. And as the ground approached, I stared into the atmosphere above me.

The sky looked full enough to hold all the wetness in the world.