If I Could Tell You Read Online Free PDF

departure, that one-off incident which made you look again, closer this time, never occurred. You pretend that it never happened, quickly forget about it. Sometimes though, they leave the box for good, and you realise that you never really knew them.
    It was afterwards. After the police and their questions. What time did you see? Did you know the deceased? Anything happened recently that might have something to do with this? Anything suspicious? I answered all the questions, feeling twitchy all the while. At the end of it, my mouth was dry and I started to feel I might have been the one who pushed him off the top of the building. I leaned out of the window to get another look but it was all quiet. The police had all come and gone. The ambulance too, and I remember the way that it had cruised in silently, lights cold. It had no reason to hurry. Somebody had cordoned the area off and put up a tarp over it. A neat little square, like it could be a patch of ground undergoing construction, an archaeological dig, even one of those full-of-shit modern art pieces, except I knew the guy. I knew the guy and never really saw him until he was dead.
    It was afterwards. After all that, going back to the couch and watching-but-not-watching to the end of that video we had on before it happened. After going about the whole day with it on our minds, and lying awake in bed for hours, both of us pretending to be asleep when Cindy said — she had wanted to say this hours ago, I know — she said, Alex? Are you awake? Do you think he jumped?
    I dunno, I said.
    He would have taken off his shoes, right? If he had jumped, she said.
    Hm, I said.
    She flipped onto her stomach, raised her head so that her face loomed above mine. I could see in the half-light, the excitement in her spilling over, touching her lips with a smile. She said very softly, I think it’s like when someone gets home and they enter their flat and take off their shoes. It’s like getting home and trying to be comfortable. I think. Like what we saw on that TV show where the guy said that people take their glasses off before they jump because it’s like going to bed. Did the dead guy wear glasses?
    Her words came out in a rush. Like she had been waiting. Keeping them in the whole day. I told her I don’t know. Then I stood up to go to the kitchen for a glass of water. I heard her from the sink, saying, guess what happened today you won’t believe it. And then calling someone else and starting with the same line. I think it was right then, after that second phone call. I couldn’t be alone with her after that. When I got back into the bedroom, I told her I couldn’t sleep, and we went out at one in the morning, joined a bunch of friends. For the next few days, I tried to have other people over at our place as long as I could, staying till late at work, saying little when I got back in the evening and telling her I was too tired to go out and do anything.
    It lasted a week, a week was all I could take. We were watching TV, one of those reality shows where everyone tries to screw over everyone else. I said it all of a sudden, forgetting the perfectly formed sentences I had arranged and rearranged in my head. In my head I spoke so convincingly that it made absolute sense, even to her. It made so much sense that we would talk, laugh and decide to be friends. Wishful thinking. I tried to do it several times during the week, but my tongue tripped up each time. Then, when I wasn’t expecting it, wasn’t thinking about it at all, it tumbled out of my mouth, surprising me. It’s not working, I said. On screen, two women in tidy corporate outfits were staring daggers at each other, close to having it out any second.
    What? Them? What’s not working? Cindy said, then she looked at me and saw what it was. Oh, she said.
    It’s not working, I said again, switching the TV off. The women were starting to shout.
    She said nothing for a while, continued staring in front of her, at nothing