Broken...

I thought I had saved her. I thought keeping her on the phone the entire night before, through tears and laughter and promises to keep going... I thought I had saved her. But with each metallic ring, I realized the truth of cliché as an eternity passed by. Ring upon ring and still there was no answer.

She only just texted me, I prayed with my lingering hopes. She has to answer - she only just texted me.

And yet again the phone rang - the numerous shrill sounds connecting New Jersey to Ohio.

All the while, I rocked in my sorority sisters' arms; all of them wondering why I had rushed out of the room - wondering why I was crying so hard - wondering who I was calling. I had fallen to my knees, still rocking, still crying, still hoping.

The phone rang again and her voice answered. But it wasn'tt her voice... it was just a recording.

I pressed the red button on my phone's keypad (at this point being unable to read the small print through the tears) and pressed the green directly afterward - instant redial.

With each passing second my heart beat a bit slower, probably to match hers as her phone rang in Ohio. Both our hearts and our minds had been getting foggier since she sent me that message.

                          im breaking our promise it had read, im sorry

After another ring, her voice answered and this time it was her. She was laughing at me. And just as suddenly as she had answered, my hopes and tears gave way to anger and fears. I pulled away from my sisters and stood for a moment - my mind trying to wrap around the girl's thoughts on the other end of the phone.

"What the hell was that message about?" I demanded. I only vaguely noted how tense, and even fearsome, my voice sounded.

She laughed. "Oh that... it was nothing...."

I knew that was a lie. Her voice sounded as if she was drunk - as if this was just another game for an intoxicated person and her annoying late-night calls. But this girl was merely 16 years old and had never had alcohol in her life. Something was wrong and I knew it with more than just my gut.

I asked again, "What is wrong?" My voice was still rough, and she still responded with floating answers. It was less a conversation than a chase; I'd demand she tell me, and she'd answer with vague words of confusion and fatigue.

Finally, though, the answer I needed came. "I took some pills," she admitted. "Pills and some red stuff."

By this time my sisters had left me alone and I let out a series of curses to the girl in Ohio, slamming my free hand against a wall and not even feeling the pain I would later notice caused a bruise. "What pills? How many?"

"I dunno," she muttered.

"Was it more than one?"

"Yeah..."

"Was it more than three?"

"Yeah..."

"Was it more than a big handful?"

"Yeah..."

I had to stop myself from screaming, I could feel my face reddening from the pressure of calming my voice. "And how much red stuff?"

"I drank the whole bottle," she admitted without hesitation, but her voice seemed to be floating even more now. "I just can't do it anymore... I'm so tired..."

No thoughts ran through my head as I spoke to her, no emotions even. I could hear it in my voice when I told her to stay awake - I was solid as rock and I somehow knew that once I hung up that phone, I would fall to pieces along with the girl two states away.

"Anything is possible." That was the meditation I repeated to myself and her. "Anything is possible and you can fight through this. You've survived this long. If you give up now, all those years you struggled would be for nothing. If you give up now, you let them win."

She was quiet after that, I could hear her breathing slowly and crying as well. It twisted my stomach.

"What are you doing?" I asked.

"Laying down."

"Get up."

"I don't wanna."

"Get. Up." With each word, I spoke through my teeth, hating that I could not lift her out of bed or yell for help.

"I just wanna sleep..."

I told her "No" as if it would stop her from anything. States away and all I had was a dying girl on the phone - all I could do was pace that small room in New Jersey.

Somehow, though, she did listen to me. Again she groaned and again I told her to get out of the bed and onto her feet, at which point she snapped at me, saying that she was trying. I heard a fumble over the phone, a hard thump followed by silence.

I screamed her name, waiting for an answer. With her on the line, I was cool and collected, but once she stopped talking I broke down. Her voice came, though, laughing yet crying at the same time.

My mind cleared. Almost instinctively I ordered her onto her feet (my own were pacing frantically around the small room) "Go get someone," I told her.

Another chase of words began before I heard her talking to someone else in Ohio. Her father was outside her room door.

"Let me talk to him!" I told her right away, emotion coming back to me in the form of relief.

"Hello?" I heard his confused voice.

"She's taken lots of pills!" I told him quickly. "Pills and some cough medicine or something! You have to help her and get her to the hospital!"

"Who is this?" he asked, his voice not even sounding scared. He sounded as if he had expected this to happen.

I told him my name and, without pausing, went on to plead to him.

"And why haven't you called the police?"

"I live in New Jersey! I don't know your address or anything! At the time, fear and anger battled in my stomach. His daughter was dying and all he could do was question me.

"Alright. I'll call you later with what's happened."

When he hung up, I stared down at the phone in my hand. Tears were smeared across the keypad and my battery was low. My shaking legs managed to bring me back into the room with my sorority sisters - only a few were left from the group of a dozen girls who had been there earlier.

"You're a good friend," they assured me, understanding only slightly what had happened.

The next few hours were practically unimportant - I was driven home and left to sit in my room with one strong, living, friend, waiting with the phone in my hand for someone to call.

I started to dialing Ohio every half hour, praying to whatever god could exist. One o'clock passed and after an eternity so did two and by three o'clock my eyes were closing as I sat up at my desk, my friend yawning next to me.

I picked up that phone once again, hating its look by now.

"Don't bother," the boy next to me muttered. "It's three-thirty in the morning, if she's in the hospital, they won't let her answer. Just go to sleep."

I sighed, hating that he could be right. I wasn't going to stop, though. "Anything is possible," I told him, convincing myself as well.

Pressing that familiar green button once again, the rings sounded in my ears. One... two... and before the third I heard her voice from Ohio, weak but real. Her stomach had been pumped and her parents were with her - best of all she was alive.

Many people told me that. Reminded me that it was the best that she was alive, and I told her as well. Over and over and over again - almost as many times as the ringing phone resounded through my mind that night. And perhaps it is the best, but at the moment your favorite uncle comes into your room at night - telling you how much he loves your 10 or 11 or 14 year-old body - telling you how much you like the feel of him - that's the moment that you might not believe it's the best. For years after, you live with the lack of understanding how your daily childhood memories make you lucky to be alive.

Best of all she's alive, I tell her. Worst of all, she can't forget it.