Lifeline

Cherith Sparks labelled as the ‘Queen Bee’ in Riverview High. Her Instagram photos get so many likes within ten minutes of the upload, you’d think she bought them. Everybody retweets her tweets, even though half of them are just Emojis. She is also labelled as ‘Miss Perfect’. Perfect grades, perfect voice, perfect face, and perfect body. You name it. Cherith has also been nominated as the student council’s president. You’d expect her to be happy, but she really isn’t.
Every day, a little part of Cherith dies inside. Stress just comes with everything that she has in the palm of her hand. Even though the people who loved her was ten times the amount of the people who hated her, every hurtful word they say cuts deep. People say that she has many friends, true, but she doesn’t have anyone she can talk to. They’re all here, not for her, but for what she has.
Then it came to the day when she just gave up. With a blade in her right hand, she was ready to do it. A goodbye note was written in cursive and placed under her paperweight. Right before she did it, Cherith saw a paper that was left underneath her drawer. Picking it up, on the paper was a list of helpful hotlines she could call. One of them was the ‘Lifeline’. It is a suicide hotline that is managed by people from all walks of life. Deciding that she had nothing left to lose, she called the hot line.
The raspy voice on the other side of the line picked up with a simple, ‘I’ll lend you a listening ear,’ it was enough for Cherith to start spilling her woes, sobbing at the same time. Never once did the voice judge her or call her stupid. When she was done with her words, he gave her advice, and he gave her hope. He saved her that night.
Cherith called the hotline every day without fail, at the same timing every time with the same raspy voice picking up and listening to her. Every phone call she makes, a part of her that died, starts to come alive again.