My name’s Zack Steelo, I’m seventeen, and I used to hate high school. I don’t have many friends; well actually I have my one friend Jared but I hardly can call a friend anyway. I wear mostly black clothing and my hair sweeps down low and almost covers my eyes, so I guess you could call me kind of dark. I don’t want to be this way, and I could actually be quite handsome which is what my mother says, but honestly I really don’t know how to change, or didn’t, until her. In the beginning, the only thing that kept me from skipping school everyday were my parents, but now? Now it’s Kylie Baker. Her, as I called her before. She’s the most popular, beautiful, caring, secretive, and messed up girl in school. When I say messed up, I don’t mean there’s something wrong with her, I just mean that she isn’t that happy-go-lucky girl; everyone thought she has always been. Although no one else knows how messed up she really is, I know, because I’m the one person she has ever really opened up to, and who she has ever, ever told her biggest, darkest, depressing secret.

While she is the most popular girl in school, I am the most unpopular boy. It’s not that I try and no one likes me, I just don’t try. Or didn’t. I can’t explain my feelings for Kylie other then, hmm how can I put it? She’s the damsel in distress and I just happen to be her knight in shining armor. Although it didn’t start out that way.

It all started with my parents wanting me to go to the guidance counselor because my parents finally noticed after about four years, that I have no real friends. The morning after their occurrence, I drudgingly made my way to the guidance counselors office in the rear building in the shitty place we call high school.

After my meeting with her, I didn’t feel any better about my no friend life then I did before but I pretended I did, for her. I walked out of the guidance counselor’s office and walked straight into Kylie Baker who was walking my direction. She dropped her books and I dropped down to my knees to pick them up for her. She got down on her knees too and picked up the remaining ones. As I handed her, her books, she takes them from me and our hands brush lightly. She flashes a crooked smile and we make eye contact that I think could have lasted forever. I loved looking in her eyes and having her look back at mine. It felt like we connected in some way, but I don’t know how, because what do we have in common? Which was nothing as far as I can tell. But then the guidance counselor stops our contact by calling “Kylie, dear! Are you ready for our meeting?” in that cheery tone that makes me want to slap myself in the face. So our little connection ends and we both look away quickly. “Yes, I’m coming.” Kylie answers.

Kylie walks into her office with a smile on her face, but I noticed how sadly she walked. She usually had a little skip in her step that makes you think she’s light as air, happy all the time. But it’s not there right now. Was I the only one to see this? I asked myself the question many times in my head, but I couldn’t figure it out. I saw that in her, because it was the same way I walked.

Every day from then on, I scheduled to meet with the guidance counselor at the same time, everyday, Just incase Kylie went back to Ms.Owen (the guidance counselor) too. She did, and each time I came out of Ms.Owen’s room, and as she walked in, we made that same eye contact, we had on the first day, where I felt so connected to her.

This went on for over a week and Monday of our second week of just looking at each other, I finally decided to say something.

“Hi, uh um my names Zack.” I say, and immediately took it back. God, your creative! I think to myself. But surprisingly she answers back.

“Kylie, but you probably know that. I know your name, we’ve been going to school together for more then four years,” She says in her raspy but beautiful voice.

“Oh, okay, well...” I trail off and don’t know what else to say.

“I’ll see you tomorrow,” she says and it makes my day, for she shows me. She knows I’m there every day, just like her.

The next day, I get out of Ms.Owen’s office, and instead of going to my first class, I sit in the stuffy waiting room, until Kylie walks out of the office too. She comes out and looks at me and I look at her. It starts to feel awkward so I blurt out, “Do you want to walk with me?”

“Aren’t you supposed to be in a class right now?” she answers.

“Aren’t you?” I say back.

“Yes. Let’s go,” she says with a smirk.

We walk for a while, down the empty halls of the school in silence, but just as I was about to speak, she beats me to it and says, “So why have you never talked to me before?”

“You’re so popular, and pretty...and I’m nobody. I never thought you would talk to me back,” I answer.

“That’s stupid,” she says under her breath. “Your not stupid, it’s just, nobodies who you think they are. I’m not as perfect as you think, and your not the loner you think you are.”

“Wow,” Is all that comes out of my mouth.

“Sorry, I usually don’t vent to people, like that,” she says quickly.

“If you have that much to say, maybe you need to vent more often?” I say.

“No one wants to listen. No one is really there for me. My friends don’t listen, they don’t want to,” she answers. And just like that I gather all my courage and say,

“I do.”

She turns her head to look me straight in the eyes, and all of a sudden she’s hugging me. She kisses my cheek and says, “Thank you.” “I don’t know you that well, but we should know each other. We must. Wanna ditch?”

“School?” I say blatantly.

“Yes,” she says with the biggest grin on her face. And right then I thought, maybe this isn’t one of the fake smiles she puts on for show at school, maybe I actually make her happy. That would mean the world to me.

After that we walk out of school like we own the place. We go to the park near her house, and then walk to her house to get her car. We get in her shiny, light blue BMW. We roll down all the windows and blast her favorite song, which is surprisingly not all that girly, like “Still Into You” by Paramore; it’s called “Collard Greens” by Kendrick Lamar.

We drive around for a while blasting music and singing a long to it, which is probably what her and her “girlfriends” do everyday after school. After a little while she turned down the music and stopped the car. She just sat there with a look on her face, a look that showed how truly unhappy she really was. I didn’t know why she was sad, for her life seemed pretty great. She was gorgeous, had a billion and one friends, and her parents were loaded, but like she said, nobodies really who you think they are.

She sits there and I have no idea what to say, so I say the first thing that comes to mind.

“Your not happy, are you?”

“No, I’m not,” she says back quietly, turning to me and giving me her beautiful crooked smile.

I get a black sharpie out of my worn, old, blue, Jansport backpack, and write my number on her hand. She looks at it, and then at me.

“Incase you need someone there. I’ll always be there to help you, you just have to ask me,” I say.

I get out of the car, before she can say anything else. I walk back to the school where my mom is waiting for me in the car line, in her old, grey, Subaru. I get in, and right away she says “How was the guidance counselor today? Ms.Owen is it?”

“Fine Mom, she was fine,” I snap at her. I don’t mean to, I’m not even mad at her; I just don’t want to talk about Ms.Owen.

“Okay,” she says kind of sadly, and for a minute I feel bad for snapping at her.

My mom pulls into the drive way and I get out. I go into the house and go right up to my room, which my mom calls a garbage dump, because it’s so messy. I don’t blame her, but I’m okay with having it the way it is.

All that goes through my head is, is she gonna call? Was I an idiot for thinking she would call me? But little did I know, she needed me more then I thought. Only after the accident, did she tell me what really happened.

Kylie got home a little while after our “adventure” and went straight up to her neat, pink and green room. Her parents yell up the stairs to her room, one at a time, taking turns telling her what chores she needs to get done. Each thing they tell her to do stresses her more out. They expect so much and she can’t do it all. Then they tell her they’re going to a gala party tonight and they need her to stay home. They leave around eight o’clock and she watches through her upstairs window as they’re white Mercedes pulls out of the driveway. Immediately, she grabs her phone and locks herself in her parent’s bathroom. She goes through they’re cabinets until she finds sleeping pills. She rips of the top and pours about fifteen into her open palm. She then decides to pick up her phone and types in the number Zack wrote on her arm. Maybe he might actually be they’re for me, like he said.

She dials his number and it rings. After about twenty rings she hangs up, and decides she was wrong. Just like everyone else, He isn’t there for her. He lied. She puts down the phone slowly and looks in the glossy mirror in front of her. First she looks at herself, wearing a short, tight violet skirt, and a creamy white blouse. She always tried to look her best at school, but why? For whom was she trying to impress? She looks at herself again, and then down at the small ivory white pills in her sweaty palm. She raises them to her mouth and swallows. All at once her world spins. Her vision is blurred but she hears the phone ring beside her and she fumbles to press the talk button. She then hears a faint “Kylie? KYLIE?!” It was Zack.

“Zack! I...need...you.” she says into the phone, but then she trails off, drifting into darkness.

I yelled Kylie a few more times and after I didn’t hear an answer to any of them, I hung up the phone and ran down my stairs, grabbed my skateboard, and raced to her.

I arrive to her house after a few minutes, worried, out of breath only able to think of, why didn’t I just pick up when she first called? Why didn’t I have my phone?

I knock on the door and no one comes, so I turn the nod and it surprisingly opens. I don’t question why it’s unlocked I just run up the stairs and turn into the room that looks most like it would be hers. She isn’t in there so I check the other rooms. I’m panting like a dog now, because of running up the stairs and skateboarding all the way to her house but also from being scared. I don’t know what to expect but I have to find her. Finally I walk into a big bathroom and see her lying on the floor. There is a pill container empty next to her and her cell phone lying next to her hand on the floor.

“KYLIE!” I scream loud enough for the whole neighborhood to hear. I then called the 911 with my own cell phone. Some one picked up the phone, a lady, and says, “911, what is your emergency?” “I think she tried to kill herself...She lying on the floor. She needs help. PLEASE!” I yelled at the other end of the phone. “Calm down, we can help you. Where are you?” the lady said. I then give her the address and she says they were sending an ambulance right over.

By this time I have picked up Kylie and carried her down the stairs and out the door, to the ambulance that just arrived. They take her from my arms and put her on a hospital buggy that they roll into the white, sterile ambulance. They tell me they can take it from here but I refuse to leave her, so I get to ride in the back of the ambulance with her. It takes about ten minutes to get the hospital, and as soon as we get to the ER, they make me stay in the yet another waiting room while Kylie is rushed through doors that have a sign on them that said “EMERGENCY AREA, NO PUBLIC ALLOWED”.

For about two hours I waited in the waiting room, going from passing back and forth to sitting on hard plastic chairs, next to other worried faces, families with crying babies, and couples with a baby on the way.

Finally after that long wait they called Kylie’s parents who leave they’re gala thing right away, but get stuck in traffic on the way. Because they weren’t there yet, the nurses let me into see Kylie.

She sat up in a hospital bed, dressed in a thin white robe. She looked weak and sad, but as soon as I walk into the room a sad smile appeared across her face. I sat next to her on the hard hospital bed and she hugged me, stronger then it looks like she would be able to hug someone.

“You were there for me,” she says, without letting go of me.

“I said I would be,” answering her, not letting go of her either.

“You saved me,” she says, now letting go and looking me straight in the eyes.

“I know,” Is all I can say, with my eyes tearing up. I don’t even know her that well, I think. But then I think to myself, and? You love her and you know that. You can get to know her.

She gives me the most beautiful but crooked smile, and then kisses me on the cheek like before in the car during our “adventure” a couple hours before this, and says “Thank You.” She pulls back from my cheek but before her face gets too far away I go in for a kiss. I kiss her, and she kisses back and it feels like magic. She now knows that I will always be there for her, and I know that once and for all, I have saved her. Not from suicide, or depression, or stress. From her biggest enemy, herself.