Among The Stars

Chapter Nineteen

Chapter Nineteen

Last night, I saved three lives. Three whole lives.

The first one, Maddie, didn't need much convincing. She was scared and was only thirteen years old. She had cut herself for one year now. She had no friends and was kind of an outcast and was bullied a lot.

I told her to suck it up and don't fight back with death. It just showed that they had prevailed in the end. Don't show the enemy they've won.

At that, she stopped replying for a while and I was worried I had lost her. She replied soon enough that she was sorry for not responding. She had decided to put the cleaning bleach back in its rightful cabinet.

The second was a guy named Zane. He had seemed like a cool guy, but he was gay. He was seventeen, a year older than me, and was constantly bullied. He came out of the closet last year and was greeted by a wave of hate.

The school's favorite prank to pull was to write FAG on his house door and plain green locker in big, red letters. That wasn't his favorite, though.

He came home last night to that. Quickly, he came inside and unlocked his dad's safe, where he had a gun. He had it locked and loaded by the time I got to him.

He talked to me about everything happening and I could tell he was crying on the other end and I could just picture a boy losing it with a pistol pointed towards his head, his finger resting on the trigger.

I told him the same thing I told Maddie, but he didn't like that one. He said killing himself would just make everyone regret what they've done and never do it again. I replied saying that wasn't the truth. They wouldn't just stop at you and they would keep going. He would just have to push back harder and fight for his beliefs and who he was because he was stronger than this.

He lost his temper a few times and that got me worried, but eventually, he messaged me, saying he finally put the gun down.

Then, came the third one. Her name was Kim, short for Kimberly. She had been dating this guy for two months and she had finally broken up with him because he had told another girl he loved her while they were still dating. This hurt her and she couldn't keep down whatever food she had in her system.

Then, not even two weeks after, her best friend started flirting with him and rumors were going around that they were dating. Kim's friend quickly shot down the rumors, but still hung all over him.

Last night, Kim had yelled at her friend, telling her how much she sucked and how she was a slut who didn't care about anyone but herself, because Kim still loved her ex. He had just hurt her. A lot.

That had ended their friendship and Kim soon realized that she had nobody left. And that's the worst feeling she had ever felt, so she IMed me first, saying only four words: I'm going to die.

Quickly, I replied with all the right words I had said towards Zane and Maddie and, soon enough, Kim backed down, too, but she told me she still wasn't going to eat. It was a habit now and she couldn't stop it.

I told her that that could kill her just as easy as a gun or a knife could.

She ignored me and left the chat.

And I don't think I could've had a worse feeling than that unless I had actually lost her.