i hope you’re okay.

i miss you.

you seem happier now, we both do.

but, we both know deep down that we will most likely never be fully okay.

i ask myself all the time… what could i have done better?

how could i have helped you, made you see what i saw in you?

you sat on the edge for a while, staring over the ledge at the busy freeway. i stood starring at you from below, sobbing.

in your mind, there was nothing to live for, nothing worth living for.

live for me, i thought. live for me. please live for me.

it’s selfish, but i needed you, in all honesty, i still do.

i loved you then, i love you now.

you didn’t jump because you knew that if you did, it wouldn’t kill you. you’d survive the fall and, when you woke up, you’d be sent to a place far worse than the center we were at.

i lived with you for two months in a residential treatment center for eating disorders until we were both discharged.

we suffered together, we cried together, but we laughed together too.

we’d talk in spanish complaining about the staff, we’d talk about boys, we’d talk about all the things we’d do once we got out of center for discovery (the treatment center we were at), and all things we would do together.

at the center, all sharp objects, from knives to pen caps, are locked in a cabinet which only the staff has a key too.

i remember that one night in our room. i heard a noise coming from your side of the room.

the staff who watches us at night had fallen asleep and someone had forgotten to lock away a pen cap.

you lay in bed, a broken pen cap in your hand, and blood on your wrists.

i ran to you and tried to take away the cap. you pushed me away, i lunged at you again and took it.

i grabbed your arms and forced them around me. you sobbed, begging for the cap. i could almost hear you internally begging to me, “end this please, end me please.”

you kept on saying please in between sobs. over and over again: “please.”

“shhh,” i whispered crying. “shhh”.

you were seventeen at the time, i was thirteen.

i was a ninety-pound, anorexic, thirteen-year-old girl living in a metal hospital.

you were a bulimic, suicidal, seventeen-year-old girl living in a mental hospital.

i held you for what felt like hours, i hugged you until you stopped crying.

you’re nineteen.

i don’t see you much anymore, we talk sometimes though.

you were sent back to the center twice because you relapsed.

you seem better now though, you seem happy now, but i worry a lot.

you’re nineteen. if you go back to your old ways, you’re parents can’t legally force you back to the center, you’re an adult.

if you wanted to, you can find a bigger ledge, one that could end it all.

i can’t protect you anymore, i’m not there to grab the pen cap.

you are happy now, but we both know how fast things can change.

i hope you stay happy forever. please stay happy forever.

if you are ever sad, please tell me.

thirteen years old in a treatment center, fifteen years old in my room writing this, twenty years old wherever i’ll be then, no matter what age or what place, i will always be here to hold you.