Description
A RISELiftingOthers Digital Original Novella
For seven years, Kai has walked the Golden Bay Bridge every Saturday morning.
He is not a therapist. Not a crisis counselor. He is a man with a notebook, a thermos of coffee, and the particular knowledge of someone who almost stepped off the same railing he now leans against to talk strangers down. His brother Luca didn’t have a Kai. That’s why Kai became Kai.
The Bridge Keeper is a literary novella that spans one year and four seasons. It follows Kai through multiple encounters on the bridge: Maya, a young woman in a yellow raincoat trying to escape domestic violence. Theo, the man in the red jacket who came back four months after Kai “saved” him — angrier, more broken, and more honest than before. A teenager with blue hair and empty eyes. And running underneath all of it, the question Kai’s daughter Sara keeps asking, the question he can’t answer: Are you saving them, or are you trying to save Luca?
This is not a feel-good story about a hero who saves lives. It is an honest reckoning with what showing up actually costs. With what the mental health system actually looks like from the inside. With the difference between buying someone time and giving them a future — and whether that difference even matters when the alternative is doing nothing.
What This Novella Is
- A story about grief, guilt, and the impossible math of mental health crisis
- A portrait of informal crisis intervention — what it looks like in practice, not on news segments
- An exploration of what we owe strangers, and what we owe ourselves
- A meditation on presence as an act of love, even when outcomes are uncertain
- Literary fiction that trusts readers to sit with complexity and discomfort
What This Novella Is Not
- A how-to guide or clinical resource
- A story that promises everyone gets saved
- A romanticization of suicide, crisis, or the “hero who fixes everything”
- Comfortable
Who Should Read This
Mental health professionals and crisis workers who need fiction that honors the weight of their work. People who have lost someone to suicide and carry grief that doesn’t resolve neatly. Readers who want literary fiction that engages seriously with mental health and systemic failure. Anyone who has ever tried to hold someone else up while quietly drowning themselves.
About the Book
Title: The Bridge Keeper: The Gap Between Here and Gone Author: Serenite Hope Publisher: RISELiftingOthers Year: 2025 Format: Digital Novella (eBook) Origin: Expanded from the short story originally published in Between Breath and Breaking Structure: Four parts (Spring, Summer, Autumn, Winter) spanning one year
A Note on Content
This novella depicts suicidal ideation, suicide loss, crisis intervention scenes, domestic violence, and the systemic failures of mental health care. It is written with care, research, and deep respect for everyone this subject touches. A crisis resource list is included in the book’s preface.
If you or someone you know is in crisis: Call or text 988 (US Suicide & Crisis Lifeline). International resources at iasp.info.
Published by RISELiftingOthers. All rights reserved. © 2025 Serenite Hope.
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