There are one thousand, eight hundred and sixty steps from the street level to the 102nd floor of the Empire State Building. It took only one to get back to street level.

They buried her today.

I stood in the crowd, all of us dressed in blacks. I straightened my tie nervously as ladies I didn't know in big, veiled hats exchanged soft, sad words about what a shame it was. How she'd been so brilliant, how she'd had such a full life ahead of her. Ladies that didn't even know her.

There was a coffin, but there wasn't much in it. They didn't open the casket either, like they did sometimes. The man at the funeral home had said there was a limit to how much they could make fit for viewing, and I didn't really blame him for not even trying.

"This sucks," Cindy told me. We were sat at one of the cheap metal tables they roll out for occasions like this, both of us with a glass of alcohol in our hands. I hadn't asked if it was wine or something else. Didn't care.

"Yeah," I agreed, tone muted. We exchanged a look, Cindy's eyes heavy and ringed, her face lined in stress like a mirror of my own. Together, we drank. It was white wine, dry, about a 4. She would have liked it.

Living in New York was more like living the grind than living the dream. You could tell who worked there and who was a tourist just by looking at the faces on the subway. The ones with the bright eyes and the hopeful faces, who talked and adjusted backpacks and hung around in groups of four or five, they were the tourists. The ones with the same sort of look, that wore suits instead and made nervous noises, shuffling and looking at their feet and trying not to touch anyone else on the packed train, they were the ones who hadn't been crushed yet. People like me and Cindy, who stood there in silence, keeping our faces expressionless lest the stress and the weariness show through, we were the ones that belonged to New York. The city that lit up the sky and sucked the soul out of you, with the laws on using your horn because too many people blamed the car directly in front of them for the traffic they were stuck in, with the endless crowds of people who either didn't know they were being overcharged or were happy to be because, hey, it's New York. Street hawkers and roads named by number, because the people who built this city had lived in ones where roads wound like snakes, and vowed to make it easier. Except it wasn't, because the cars still stood in unmoving lanes, grumbling out fumes as their drivers twitched away the urge to hammer the horn and hurl abuse at the driver in front of them.

Me and Cindy were going to be late for work.

"It's fucked up," she remarked, getting ready to drive her heel into the toes of the man who looked like he was going to move on eying her up. "It's like, Jesus Christ, one fuckin' day. Isn't enough."

"Yeah," I agreed. I'd been monosyllabic all journey, voice dull, but even though I'd felt through the apathy that I was being an ass, Cindy hadn't called me out on it yet.

"Gonna walk in, and nobody's gonna say 'hey, Cindy, you feelin' ok?', they're going to be all 'what you doing late for work again? I'm makin' a record of it, you hear?'. Fucked up."

"Yeah," I agreed once more, tightening my grip on the rail above my head as the train shuddered to a halt at the station. Next one was ours. A voice over the tannoy told us as much, but when you've lived in the city for long enough you learn the routes by heart anyway.

"They don't give a shit," Cindy finished. Her fingers twitched close to her pocket. She'd only quit a month and a half ago, but I couldn't blame her for the urge after yesterday.

"Yeah," I repeated one final time, listening to the doors hiss closed and the automated voice telling us which line we were on, and where we were headed. Some small mercy that it was at the least faster than a taxi, and nobody who actually lived there drove in New York.

That weekend, I met Cindy in one of the more respectable food courts around the city, and we sat and had lunch. She had a scowl on her face the whole time, the lines under her eyes now dark and purple, her eyes bloodshot. I could smell smoke on her as she ranted, over the ambient smell of the city. In some parts of New York I'd heard people claim the air had a taste, the sweet and bitter tang of pollution. Here it tasted like cheap Chinese food and kerosene, and I nodded along to Cindy as she grumbled about everything that she thought had gone to hell. I don't think I said a single word. We parted on the same quiet but friendly terms we always did.

I walked down fifth avenue and stood at the intersection with west 34th street, and looked up at the building that towered above me. In the daylight, it was dirty white and speckled with windows. At night, it was black and lit up with blocks of orange and white like a beacon. Sometimes they changed the colours of the floodlights at the top. Light up the top of the building; red, white and blue, God bless America.

I scuffed my dirty trainers on the pavement. Clean, pretty damn clean. It wasn't the first time I'd come here, since she'd died. Couldn't believe it at first, really. I'd wanted to stand there and feel that there was a difference, that something had changed when she'd gone, but nothing had. New York went on, it didn't care that one more had been lost in its vast embrace. A thousand, a million feet beat out its streets every day of its existence, and there would be another pair of feet to replace hers yet. Probably already had. New York moved on fast.

I walked inside. Paid the exorbitant price for a ticket to the top, handed my bag over to be rummaged through by a man in case I was a terrorist and I'd been stupid enough to put a bomb in it. I stayed quiet; he handed my bag back to me on the other side with a grunt.

It was a Saturday and it was the afternoon, so the queue was long and spiralled up and down most of the floors. I didn't mind. I started counting steps, got my little diary out of my bag and wrote down the number whenever the line paused on a flat floor. Smiled to myself every time I broke another hundred. In front of me, a group of tourists were trying to shush those of their number who were complaining loudly about the wait, grumbling at the line. Their accent put them at European, I guessed Italian. Behind me was another group, a quiet one. When they did speak they identified themselves as British. Some people in New York loved tourists, they'd listen to them for hours just to hear their accents. Marvelled at the way people who spoke the same language could sound so different from us. I hadn't felt that wonder for a while now, though. Too busy just trying to get by.

I rode up in the fast elevators with half of the complaining Europeans, who had now stopped complaining because they hadn't yet realised there was still a while yet to the top. It was less than a minute up to the 80th floor. Quick, but safe. I'd heard a lady once survived falling 75 floors in one of those elevators. She was lucky.

I continued up the stairs, still counting, as the noisy Europeans opted for the second set of elevators. They were being loud in the gift shop when I reached it, but I ignored them and walked out onto the observation deck.

There are one thousand, eight hundred and sixty steps from the street level to the 102nd floor of the Empire State Building. It took only one to get back to street level.

I wrapped my hand around one of the tall, metal bars that served to prevent people falling. From jumping. I wondered how the people around me would react if I vaulted them, as if to jump. Would they try and stop me? Would they have the time to? The fencing was twice as high as I was. It was a lot further down to the ground. I looked down, but I couldn't see the street. One thousand, eight hundred and sixty steps, she'd taken. And up here, number sixty-one had been the last one she'd ever taken.

I hadn't come to jump, though. I missed her, but not enough to try and join her. Instead, I tore the counting page from my diary and held it in my fingers, watching it flutter and strain in the strong winds that were endemic as high up as I was. I stood there, watching it, and then let go. Almost immediately, it was lost from my sight. As my eyes tracked where it might have flown, I smiled faintly.

I took the elevators back down. That queue was always far shorter than the one to get up to the deck, without fail. I supposed that was the nature of waiting. It seems endless to get where you want to go, then when you get there, the way out is advertised in bright neon, the way clear to walk. The Europeans were still arguing in the hallway as I passed.

Walking out of the building, I went and stood on the sidewalk once more, looking down at the concrete. Here was where she'd landed, but all I'd had was an email about it. Cindy had the right of it when she called it fucked up.

My phone buzzed, so I rummaged in my jacket pockets until I found it and looked at the caller ID. Speak of the devil.

"Hey," I greeted, wondering if the sound would be lost in the ambience of New York, despite how close the phone was to my face. There was a pause, just long enough for me to start to worry.

"Hey," Cindy replied eventually. I didn't know what to say. Probably something about how it had only been a few hours. "Andy called. Wants to know if you want to do some drinking tonight, eight at his place." I made a neutral noise.

"Why?" I asked. Another pause.

"I don't even fuckin' know," she admitted. "Get trashed, forget about her, regret the hell out of it in the mornin' when you wake with a bitch of a hangover. You game?" I laughed softly at that, which made Cindy make a surprised noise down the phone.

"Sure," I agreed. "Get trashed, forget about her. See you at eight." I hung up before she did, then looked up at the sky. It was cloudy. It'd probably rain later, and the men who sold umbrellas that fell apart on the first use for more dollars than they were worth would make a killing off the unfortunate tourists who got caught in it. It was four, maybe four thirty. I had time to kill.

I grinned at the sky, imagining I could still see the steps, floating in space, then looked forwards. Life was too short, I thought, to waste it wondering how her blood had looked pooling in the cracks on the pavement, or why she'd jumped. She wouldn't want us to go with her.

Hands in my pockets, I took my first step away from where she'd died.