As has become altogether common when you offer an opinion on one of my stories, your take on it reflects almost exactly what I was trying to put across. There was indeed a choice to be made, and our man Parker genuinely was at a balance point where it could go either way. Ariel (and did you recognize the character? I offered a few small clues) did everything she could to stack the deck, and it appeared that it was almost enough to tilt the balance …

… but it was his choice to make, and he chose what he did. And your impression matches mine: I believe she felt the moment arrive, cried out for him — the last push that might have worked — and felt him waver at the edge and then fall back in.

If this is so, then she was witness to a tragedy … and the most tragic part is that he was (and remained) completely unaware of his own fall.