Prologue
Six Years Ago
Felix was on patrol when he got the call.
“We got a white male, mid-20’s, on the edge of the Wester bridge, looking ready to jump.”
“I see him,” Felix responded, the closest patrol highwayman in the area.
He slowly pulled up to the median, nixing the flashing lights in case he spooked this guy.
For some odd reason, the first thing he noticed was that the dude wasn’t all that bad looking. A solid five. Six on a real good day. He just needed a chick, a remedy that only solidified its place in his mind as time wore on. And from the looks of it, that would be relatively easy. This was gonna be a walk in the park.
“Hey bro,” Felix said to the man who had his hands behind him backward on the railing, like a four-year-old ignoring the insistent warnings of his mom.
“Hey,” the guy answered with a nervous laugh.
“Look, there’s a better way to watch the ferries if that’s what you’re trying to do. We got a couple of phone calls. You’re spookin’ the motorists.”
“I’m not trying to watch the ferries. I’m gonna jump.”
“Jump? Like… to kill yourself?”
“Yeah.”
“Well, are ya sure this is gonna do it?”
“Yeah. I saw a documentary about it.”
Felix looked down at the water below that certainly looked intimidating, but not like it could kill a guy.
“Well, I hope you’re right about that, chief. For your sake. You don’t look like a guy that has a history of… being right about things.”
The young man huffed a laugh that slowly turned into a lighthearted giggle, then a belly laugh, tears clinging to red eyes. Finally, he stopped.
“You got me, officer.”
“What’s got you ready to kill yourself, if you don’t mind me asking.”
“I do mind. I don’t wanna talk about it,” the man shook his head mournfully with his eyes shut, like it was making him sick.
“Look, bro, I’m not asking for a whole long story, trust me on that. Just trying to figure out your thought process here.”
“Well, my thought process is that I’m a piece of shit. And I can’t bear to spend another minute with myself.”
“Well, I gotta level with you… uh… guy.”
“Cliff.”
“…You’re hanging off a bridge and your name is Cliff?”
“Yeah.”
“Well… Cliff… I gotta level with you, I think if you jump offa this bridge, the ambulance is gonna come scoop out your broken, but living, body, and you’re gonna be spending even more time with yourself than you ever wanted to. Don’t you have someone in your life that cares about you?”
At that, Cliff visibly comes apart, shaking, veins in his neck and forehead bulging. Now he wasn’t looking so pretty. Felix wanted to lunge, in case he made a mistake reading this guy, but he stays put, even when Cliff shakily shifts his weight to a more comfortable position, eyeing the water below.
Clearly the answer to this question was “yes.” Felix was starting to worry if this guy had done something to him or her himself.
“I did something… horrible.”
Shit.
“What’d you do, Cliff?”
“I hurt someone. Someone really fucking special.”
Double shit.
“Wait, who are we talking about?”
“Her name’s Lyric,” he replied in a labored stutter, “or at least that’s what she called herself. I don’t know her real name.”
“What does this ‘Lyric’ look like?”
“She’s…you know… heavy set. Black. Er… African American. Got this real pretty face. You know, one of those big girls that you’re sure would be a ten if they lost the fuckin’ weight…”
Felix prepared himself to call in an APB, but the way this guy was talking, he wasn’t so confident he was dealing with a homicide.
“What’d you do to her, Cliff?”
“I broke her heart. I was her Match. And I fuckin’… I’m a piece of shit bro, just let me jump. Whatever happens to me, I deserve it.”
“I don’t understand, why can’t you just… go get her.”
“What part of ‘I’m a piece of shit’ do you not get!” Cliff spat, yelling. “I don’t want her to be with me. She doesn’t deserve me. And I don’t deserve anyone.”
“But if she’s your ‘match’ or whatever you keep saying… I don’t know, wouldn’t it be easier to just… make yourself into the type a guy that deserves her? Then you can both be happy?”
Cliff stopped and listened to his words, a serene twinkle in his eye for a brief moment.
“That’d never work.”
“Well, why not?”
“Because they make it so you can’t track ‘em down after you say ‘no,’ it’s… part of this program thing we were a part of.”
“Oh, you’re not talking about that Halcyon thing? Where they guarantee you find your soulmate or whatever? You must be loaded.”
“I live with my parents. They paid for it.”
“Ah,” Felix said, the picture getting the slightest bit clearer. “I thought it was guaranteed? They had 100% success, that’s their whole thing.”
“I guess I’m the first loser. Not surprising.”
“Decent looking guy like you, wealthy family. What do you need with a program like that anyway?”
“I was engaged once before but she dumped me. I didn’t wanna go at first, but I started to look forward to it. ‘Halcyon’s a sure thing’ they told me. I couldn’t lose.”
“You should sue those fuckers.”
“It’s not their fault. I opted out. When the program’s over, they separate you. They do this exit interview and rattle off a buncha shit, and they’re required to tell you that you can opt-out, which means you’re basically cut off from that person for the rest of your life. You go in with fake names, you don’t know anything about them except for what they tell you, which they make sure is vague. It’s basically like they’re in witness protection.”
“How do they make sure?”
“Make sure what?”
“That some chick doesn’t just give you her home address? During the program?”
“You’re monitored 24 hours a day. Plus, there’s no reason to break the rules, really. Everyone’s there to get a match, everybody follows the rules.”
“What if you see someone in there you like more?”
Cliff’s mind goes to Cherie and Dave.
“I saw something like that. But you’re not allowed to talk about the program to anyone else, once you’re gone or while you’re there. They all become ghosts after you leave.”
“So you could be in trouble for what you just told me?”
“…Not really. It’s more like… if your grandma had a secret recipe. They don’t want anyone knowing how the sausage gets made.”
Felix saw the other squad car he’d called in a ways off. He needed to keep him talking just a bit longer.