Chapter 3

Remember what I said about him preferring to lose a piece of himself so as not to get involved in the lives of others? Maybe that was the problem. Edward painted his world with cold and sad tones because inside it there was no more color. He didn't want others to realize this, but he didn't make an effort to hide it. His friends, family, and neighbors just ignored the reflection of death that appeared from time to time in his eyes.

You must still be wondering what a person may have done so importantly in your life to receive a letter since you can barely understand where I want to go with all this outburst.

Know that I do not intend to convince you that Edward was more than an unusual name and a conflicting personality. I want you to understand that nothing he said or did had any global impact, but that none of the people who met him can deny that his life had more value for us than for himself.

Edward was the shadow of a man who was dazzled by unattainable dreams and idealizations. These dreams were broken, just like his mania to always see the best in the worst hearts, and were thrown into fragments into the starry sky, where to this day he must look up and make a request.

He liked to contradict those who mocked his melancholy songs and cared little when they criticized him for his obsession with freedom. Edward was, in a nutshell, a mixture of a creature that could not adapt to what the world offered him. He wanted more, and he didn't want to miss anything. I wanted to reach the stars, but never take my feet off the ground. It was the personification of a bird trapped in a cage; thirsty for his release, but attached to what he already had.

The black man was part of your life. There were no contrasts, lights, or degrades that formed its essence. He sheltered the darkness as his only friend, and she became.

Edward was always on the edge of the abyss. Oscillating between becoming a good person or living the world you were promised. I wanted more than I could hold in your hands, and in that, we have always been very similar.

I always knew that there was something else in what he allowed us to show us. Light beyond the black robes and the tired look. And he also found that in me. Maybe it was his protective instinct and that thing that made him see through our eyes. He saw the best in me, and it seemed very clear that we should be destined for each other.

Maybe that's why we met in such an unusual way for a couple who would become passionate lovers. I mean, nothing against it, but I would never say that finding a man standing in front of a bridge over a deep river could lead to a novel, no matter how tragic it is.

I would never look more than once at that tall figure darkened by black robes if it were not for a greater force, much less would I have stopped my way on the other side of the bridge, since I was talking futilities on my cell phone and too distracted for any possible surprise, and even less I would have run along the avenue without looking as I crossed to the side

"Wait!", I wouldn't have screamed, letting go of the cell phone, and the bag, and tripped over my boots to reach him. The wind of that cold night would not have messed up my hair and blown redheads into my eyes, making me momentarily blind in my despair to get to the other side, suffocating my requests for Edward not to move any more muscles.

Thinking now, a lot could have gone wrong that night, if the universe had not conspired so that no car would cross the bridge at that moment, avoiding my run-over. If the stars had not moved so that the moon would reflect on Edward's black robes and stimulating hair, making me mesmerized by the purpose of my haste. I could have died before reaching him, I could have stumbled and missed the chance to avoid his fall, and then this letter would never have been written. You, dear reader, would never know that Edward was moved by the cry of a stranger that night, and was paralyzed in the act of raising his arms to death, holding on to the only hope that arose for him.

At that time, at the height of my eighteen years, I was never the kind of girl who let herself be carried away by astrology or by the belief that fate would reserve for me some great feat. It did not occur to me at that moment, and not even before this, until I realized that saving Edward's life would unleash an edge of new achievements and tragedies. I did not know that by touching the ends of the wedding on the sidewalk next to the bridge and throwing myself on him in an attempt to hold him, taken by the impulse to understand the motivations for his decision, he would end up changing my life forever and ever.

If it were not for the sake of simply happening, I would not have been moved to the point of forgetting my reasons for always admiring the waters of that bridge, to feel that one day I would end up reaching the extreme that Edward had reached. If it were not for mere coincidence or a brutal move of fate, our paths would never have crossed.

Edward would not have lowered his arms, rotated on his heels to look, and been inert with his long black hair slapping his face. And I think he would have let me throw myself against his legs, hugging them, because today I see that because he is a man with muscles and a structure much superior to mine, we would both have fallen if he was not also struggling not to give in to the cold and dark waters that awaited him down there, surrendering to the slightest sign of empathy that someone had

I must have stayed there for a couple of minutes, something like because my arms hurt when I decided to let him go, and I could hear his bones crashing when he decided to go down, and I swore that he would release the dogs on top of me - saying this, I mean that I thought he could shout or fight for wanting to save him. Since I always knew that suicides felt even more impotence when their attempts were interrupted.

For a very long moment, when only our breaths were heard beyond the whisper of the wind, Edward stared at me. His eyes were black but very bright, and everything in my world seemed to gain color as his darkness became my only focus. The world stopped spinning, because Edward looked at me for the first time in his life, and our souls became known and familiar.