How To Save A Life

How to Save a Life (9)

Addison

If there was one thing I'd learned in my sixteen years, it was that no matter what, there was always someone there. You could be completely alone, perhaps in an empty classroom or maybe even a deserted island, but there was always someone there, there was always someone who loved you, somewhere in the world.

I liked to think of it as lucky. The more people you had loving you, the better your luck. I thought I had a lot of people who loved me, until I realized that it was an absolute lie. There were people out there that trusted me, that enjoyed being around me, that were my friends - but they didn't love me. Emily loved me, she was my sister, she loved me with everything she had. Mom and Dad, they had loved me. Jared loved me when we were kids, and I liked to think he still loved me. Emily's best friend, Courtney, was like a sister to me, she loved me.

There was a handful of people that loved me, and it brought me enough luck to save my life. Maybe not enough to leave me unharmed - I lost my parents and my leg was in such agony it numbed the rest of me - but I was alive, and that was what mattered. It brought me enough luck to meet my favourite singer, who had so many people that loved him that he had enough luck to meet a girl that I got to watch him falling for, and her awesome little sister.

If he had people who loved him all over the world, and he told me he loved me (which I didn't doubt), then obviously, it'd bring me a bit more luck. Hopefully, enough to get off this island and to save my leg.

Oliver had enough love, enough luck, that he had love to spare in that golden heart of his. Emily had enough love, enough luck, that she had just enough room to be able to love another person truly.

Maybe it was the little sister fantasies that strike us all, the ones that being you into a daydream of having a sister with a hot boyfriend with an even hotter little brother, but there was something telling me that Oliver and Emily were something special. Maybe they hadn't realized it, and maybe I wasn't certain, but there was something there that was more than a spark.

Sparks didn't cause two people to curl into each other while sleeping, didn't cause them to murmur each other's names unconsciously in their sleep. They didn't cause them to stand talking for hours, content with being in each other's arms. Sparks were fun, and maybe I had felt them with my last boyfriend, Vance, but I never loved him truly.

I'd never fallen in love, never had that feeling that all the books described as life changing, like you'd be willing to die for the other person. I'd seen it in my parents, but I'd never felt it, and I knew Emily hadn't either.

But as far as I knew, that was slowly changing. My sister wasn't the type to let people in so fast. With most people, if she'd woken up on their lap on a door in the middle of the ocean, she'd find an excuse to jump off, or come sit with me. It took her months to even tell Courtney who she had a crush on - she didn't trust easily. She didn't judge quickly, and she was the best listener I knew, but as soon as it came time for her secrets to be spilled, her walls came up.

As long as I had known my sister, I'd never once seen her talk to someone the way she did Oliver - even Courtney. She loved Courtney half to death, considered her a sister, but there were things she still held back from her and only told me. Yet I had heard her telling Oliver about Rudy, Emily's very first friend, within a few days of knowing him.

It wasn't just unusual. It was unheard of.

I didn't know if Oliver had told her secrets. Maybe they had heart to hearts while I slept - it wouldn't surprise me. I trusted Oliver as soon as I saw him, and maybe since Emily had too, he felt the same way about us. The boy with the blue eyes who had been my object of affection for the past three years wasn't a stranger like he was to Emily - but there were things I had a feeling he'd tell her that I'd never know, and I was ok with it.