Reagan walks in and sees me sitting on my bed, head in my hands. The tears soaked everything, my hands begin to shake. She sniffs and sits next to me on my bed.
“Whatever you’re going through,” She starts, her voice is so soft and painful, it stings my heart like a wasp. The pain is almost agonizing, knowing I almost just left her forever. “I want you to talk to me about it.”
I have to muster the strength to look at her, to meet her eyes, because I was scared they would kill me just like that, send my heart stopping, and kill me in her arms. I wanted that. I saw her through tears, but I knew it was her, there was no warmth much like her.
“Reagan…” My voice shakes with pressure. “I want this all to be over. My eyes look at things, but I can’t see. Reality doesn’t seem real anymore.”
She brushes her perfect brown hair behind her right ear, “Am I real?”
I cringe, the pain in my chest just grew deeper and deeper, “You’re the most real thing I know.”
“Am I more real than you?” She asks. Her voice was sounded like she was dancing in landmines.
I nod, “Yeah… Yeah, I don’t even think I’m real.”
She wraps her arms around me, and squeezes, filling my cold existence with light and hope. Sadly, the darkness was still too strong, “I think you’re real… I think you’re so real, that you don’t even realize it. You know you did the same for me? I never showed you, but two months ago I had a bottle of vodka, and I was planning on downing the whole thing and jumping in front of a train… but then you called.”
I shake my head, “No… no, I couldn’t do that.”
She takes a finger, and turns my head with her finger on my chin, “You did that… you saved me. Now, I’m going to save you.”
“Who cares if I die?”
Reagan takes a deep breath, “You know what, Mike? I do. I do so much, that if you died I’d go right after you. There is no point in living without you, you have done so much good for so many people… The pain in your voice, the pain in your heart is impacting everyone. I want you to hold me, Mike, and I want you to help me cry myself to sleep because I don’t trust myself with that anymore.”
My hands are shaking, and my head is fuzzy. She has tears streaming down her face. She curls up on the bed, and lays her head in my lap, and starts sobbing. I lay back, and my head hair grazes the wall. My ceiling looks so foreign, but the feeling of Reagan snuggling up and crying in my arms was mortifying.
“Reagan?”
“Yes, Mike?”
“The day I… saved you… No one told me to call you… No date was set… I just, simply…. Felt something, something told me, ‘Mike, you need to call this girl because she’s going to save your life.’”
She starts sobbing harder, and crawls up the bed, laying her head on my chest. She sobbed and heaved.
“Mike…” She says between sniffles. “I love you.”
“I love you too.”
All I remember after that is falling asleep with Reagan curled up in my arms. When I woke up, she was fast asleep, her hair strewn every this or that way. She was beautiful when she was asleep. She still slowly sobbed, and that reminded me of the night before. I wipe the crust from my eyes, the residue from tears, but I can’t move without waking her up. I noticed in her hand, there was a yellow piece of paper, so I slipped it out and read it.
Mike,
On August 25th, late at night in 1999, my mom hung herself in the family room. I was 6, and I discovered the body. I’ve seen through pictures and stories throughout my life what her life was, and how she felt, and I see that in you, which scares me. We’re going to go get you some help because I already lost my mom, I can’t lose you. I don’t want to find your body the way I found my mom’s. If I have to hike the tallest mountain without legs, I will do it, because I will not stop until you’re happy and I don’t have to worry about when your light will go out. You think you’re full of darkness but really you’re not, there’s still a little flame burning, and all I want to do is fan it and fuel it, to turn it into a bonfire hot enough to melt the ice caps of everyone else’s hearts, everyone else who is suffering from the same exact thing as you. We’ve lost too many good people in this world to this darkness, and I feel extremely lucky to have you because the good you do without doing good for yourself is the most selfless, charitable thing anyone can do. You think of everyone else's smiles before your own. Now it’s your turn, Mike. I want that smile back, and I want my kids to know the great and ferocious battle you fought and won. This has been hard to write because I never want to think of you in such a way. I never want to think you’ll leave one day because I KNOW you won’t. Take my hand, let's do this together. It’s not fair to do this alone.
I drop the paper, tears completely flowing now, and I grab her hand.