Leap Year
an excerpt

Connie Flores drew her scarf tighter around her neck and tucked it into the front of her jacket. The winds on the Golden Gate Bridge had picked up in intensity and threatened to carry off anything light enough that wasn’t watched closely. The scarf was an odd stripy thing. She had taught herself how to knit the previous winter. She still was not very good at it, but the five foot long multicolored scarf made from extra bits of yarn was one of her favorite possessions. Watching it sail over the rail of the bridge would be a heartbreak she just couldn’t take. It would be the perfect capper to an already imperfect vacation.
She had nearly walked to the midpoint of the bridge. Checking the scarf one more time, she paused and moved to lean over the railing. The thin wintry sunlight glinted on the choppy waves far below. Connie leaned over as far as she could and imagined what it would be like to fall from such a height. She wasn’t necessarily afraid of heights, but she was deathly afraid of falling. Many years ago, she had helped her mother repaint the living room. She had stepped on to the second step of the footstool to reach the upper trim of the window. She forgot about the second step when she came down, and stumbled and fell to the carpet. Everyone, including Connie, had a great laugh at her desperation to keep the paintbrush from hitting the carpet. Ever since then, she felt a trill of nervousness when her feet left solid ground. Part of it was an understandable fear of injury, but she was secretly more afraid of humiliation.
She looked around at the other bridge walkers. Most of them were undoubtedly tourists. Besides the obvious sign of cameras worn around the neck, she wondered that any native San Franciscan would regularly walk this enormous length. The only people on the bridge this morning are here for something, she decided. “Pictures or death,” she thought. Connie had seen a documentary last year about people who jumped off the Golden Gate Bridge in order to commit suicide. A camera had been set up on the shore for a year. She remembered seeing the beautiful, picturesque scenes of the bridge and then hearing a little splash. Someone had just ended his life on film.
The idea was disconcerting. Of all the ways to off yourself, why choose such a fall? She herself had never thought about the subject before. Yet here she was, on the most popular manmade structure for committing the final act.