Sensitivity & Strength, Larva High School 1

  After almost five years together, Ben was part of her identity. They were a couple, and they did things together, and she felt weak without him. She depended on him to be there, to cheer her up and help her out when she needed him. She wished she could have stayed home from that stupid party. She would still be dating Ben. She would still be friends with Amber.

  Looking back, she couldn’t believe how she had failed to see Amber’s infatuation with Ben. The chemistry between them was phenomenal, and Amber was always glowing when Ben was around. Why didn’t I see it? A part of her felt bad for Amber. She had seen her around at school, seen Amber look lonely and sad, and heard the harsh comments people made when she passed them. More than once, she had almost gone over to talk to Amber, but part of her was still mad at her for taking Benjamin away.

  Benjamin and Sara had talked. He came over a few days after the party to talk it over. She understood why he had gotten upset when she had danced with Joshua, and she had forgiven him. They had agreed to stay friends, but in reality they didn’t see each other anymore. At school, they would pass each other and nod heads or exchange greetings, but nothing more. Benjamin had told her about the fight with Joshua, and she couldn’t believe that they had been fighting over her. Joshua had to have been furious at her after being attacked by her boyfriend, or ex-boyfriend.

  She hadn’t talked to Joshua since the party. She felt him looking at her across the cafeteria, but she didn’t look back. She was scared of how he made her feel. She liked to be in control, and with him, she wasn’t. When they had danced together, she had felt completely powerless, and when he pulled her close, she had felt his erection against her dress. He was so intense, and for a moment she felt scared of what he might expect of her. She was fifteen and a virgin; he was at least two years older and a rock star. He had probably been with other girls, and she was clueless about sex. For some reason Joshua had excused himself and left her on the dance floor just before she found out about Ben and Amber. Why had he left her standing there like that? Was he bored with her? Had she done something wrong?

  Sara had erotic dreams about him almost every night, and part of her wanted to talk to Joshua, badly. But the past few weeks, she had hidden herself in her safe zone: books. To keep her mind off her love life, she studied like a maniac. When she had walked out of class today, she had seen Amber’s locker. Even though she was still a bit angry with Amber, she was disturbed that someone would write SLUT on her locker. Why would anyone do such a horrible thing? What if Amber thought it was she who had written it? Sara decided to call Amber to make sure Amber knew that she hadn’t written it. The phone rang forever, but finally she heard Amber’s voice.

  “Yes.”

  “Hi, Amber, it’s Sara.”

  “Sara…. what do you want?” Amber sounded very strange, as if drunk or high on something.

  Concern rose in Sara. “I want to talk to you. Is now a good time?” Amber responded, but her speech was so slurred that Sara didn’t understand her.

  “Amber, are you okay?” Sara could feel that something was completely off.

  “Mmm.” Sara heard a bump.

  “Amber, talk to me – are you okay?” Every part of Sara’s intuition screamed out an alert, and she didn’t know what to do, so she called Benjamin. “Something is wrong with Amber,” she almost shouted on the phone. “I think she did something stupid.”

  “What do you mean?” Benjamin asked in a concerned voice.

  “I called her, and she sounded drunk, or dosed, or something. You have to do something.”

  “Do you have her mom’s number?” Ben asked in a high voice, suddenly realizing he had no clue where Amber actually lived.

  “No, do you? No, wait, her mom works with Josh’s mom. I remember his number from my gift certificate for the piano lessons.”

  “Call him. I’ll look up her address and run over. Call me, okay?”

  Sara called Joshua’s number.

  “Hello.” He sounded happy.

  “Josh, it’s Sara. I need your help.” She sounded almost hysterical. “Remember that girl who got me the piano lesson with you?”

  “Yeah – Amber, the girl who kissed Ben, right?” Josh answered.

  “I think she did something stupid. And we need to find her. Your mom works with her mom, right?”

  “Right. I will call my mom; don’t worry, ok?” Joshua could tell it was urgent.

  “Okay.” Sara pressed end and called Benjamin back.

  “Did you find the address?”

  “Yes, I got it – meet me at 19852 Main Drive.”

  “Got it!” Sara memorized the number. Main Drive wasn’t far away. She ran the whole way, replaying Amber’s slurring voice in her mind. Something was definitely wrong. Sara got there just a few minutes before Benjamin did and knocked on the door. No one answered, so she started peeking in the windows, but she couldn’t see Amber anywhere.

  Benjamin was on his bike. He jumped off and flew to the door. He banged on it. “Is it open?” Sara asked. Benjamin pushed down the handle. The door was open, and they separated immediately and started calling for Amber. She didn’t respond. Benjamin froze when he heard Sara’s scream. He sprinted to the upstairs bathroom, where he found Sara covering her mouth with her hands. His eyes followed Sara’s stare and he saw Amber, lying lifeless in the bathtub. With panic in her eyes Sara turned to him. “What are we going to do?”

  Benjamin’s eyes flew across the room and registered two bottles of pills on the sink. “Call 911,” he shouted at Sara and fell to his knees next to Amber. “Oh no, Amber,” he cried, grabbing her hand and calling her name over and over again. “Amber, wake up, wake up! Please wake up.” He listened to her chest but couldn’t hear anything over his own pounding heart beating inside him. He pulled her out of the water and down on the floor, where he started doing the CPR he had learned in health class. “Come on, Amber, breathe,” he said, doing compressions. He heard Sara talking on the phone, and kept doing CPR. “Please live, Amber, please.” Finally he heard sirens coming closer.

  When the paramedics came in, they took over and Benjamin was pushed out of the way. He stood in the corner looking completely lost as he watched Amber surrounded by emergency technicians.

  “How many pills did she take?” One of them asked as they pulled her onto a stretcher and wrapped her in a blanket.

  “I don’t know.” Benjamin looked at the glasses by the sink, and a paramedic picked them up and looked at the labels. He looked at Benjamin. “Are you her brother?”

  “No, I’m her friend,” he said, and the minute he said it, he felt sick to his stomach. He didn’t deserve that title.

  “Is her mom or dad here?” the paramedic asked.

  Sara answered. “I talked to her mom just now. She is two hours away, but she’s on her way back. Her dad lives in Michigan.”

  “Tell her mom that we are taking her to St. Helen’s Hospital.” The paramedic looked from Sara to Benjamin.“ Are either of you two over eighteen?”

  “No.” Benjamin said and looked confused.

  “Okay, listen – normally we don’t take minors with us, but since she is unconscious and her parents are not here, we will need one of you to come with us to answer questions.”

  “I will go with her,” Benjamin said immediately and followed the paramedics.

  Sitting up front in the ambulance, he couldn’t stop images of Amber in the bathtub flashing through his mind. She had looked so pale, as if all color and life had vanished from her. His mind went back to her face glowing in the cafeteria and the way she would laugh and joke about stupid things that only the two of them could appreciate. Even Sara didn’t always get his humor, but Amber did. She was so easy to be around; she was so wonderful and sweet. How could such a beautiful, smart girl end up here, lifeless and pale?

  He felt an enormous weight of guilt crushing him as he thought about the way he had avoided her since the party. He hadn’t known what to say or do. He hadn’t known how to act around her
anymore. Nothing was the same between them after that night.

  Amber was so special to him. He had completely blown it. If he could only have ended his relationship with Sara before he kissed Amber, everything would have been different. He knew she was being bullied at school because of him and their kiss. He naively thought that if he stayed away from her, people would ease up and leave her alone. He figured that if they became a couple, Amber would be even more of a target. He had struggled since the party. Some of his peers didn’t talk to him anymore, and others thought he was a real macho man. But it wasn’t like that. He felt so confused.

  He’d thought he had time – time to heal the wound and start fresh with Amber when everything cooled down. He had been thinking about her every day since that kiss. Her body, her breasts, her smell, and the way she had kissed him back. He longed to touch her again, but couldn’t bear to do her any more harm. Benjamin realized now how wrong he had been for staying away. How could he have failed her when she needed him the most? “I am so sorry,” He whispered without being heard.

  CHAPTER 14

  How can I help?

  When Joshua called his mom on the phone, she was in a meeting, but the concern in his voice convinced the operator to connect him to Amber’s mom, Grace.

  Joshua explained everything he knew, which was basically nothing, but Grace cut him off and said, “Thank you, I am calling her right now.” One minute later, she called him back. “She’s not picking up her phone. I am coming home, but it will take me a few hours. Can you go over and check on her, please?”

  “Sure,” Joshua responded.

  “Okay. Ask her to call me right away, will you?” Grace sounded worried.

  “Okay, I will,” Josh assured her and called Sara to tell her about Amber’s mom. Sara told him how the paramedics had just arrived and how she and Benjamin had found Amber in the tub. Sara was crying on the phone, and Joshua kept talking to her in a calm voice to keep her focused. “It’s going to be all right, Sara, just stay where you are. I will be there in a few minutes, okay?” He drove as fast as he could, and when he got to the address, he found Sara sitting on the floor crying. She was alone, and between her abrupt sobs, he understood that the paramedics had just left and that Benjamin had gone with Amber in the ambulance.

  Joshua sat down next to her, put his arms around her, and pulled her closer. She leaned her head on his chest and sobbed. Joshua stroked her hair. “It will be all right. She’s in good hands now.” He tried to comfort her. Finally, Sara’s crying subsided and she looked up at him with frightened eyes. “Do you think she is dead?”

  Joshua didn’t know what to say, so he shook his head and dried away her tears, still admiring how beautiful she looked. He felt so protective of her and couldn’t bear to see her so upset. Slowly he kissed her forehead. She sat there silently, completely in his care. “Thank you, Josh,” she said and put her arms around his neck while leaning on his chest. “Thank you for coming, thank you for being here with me.”

  He smiled at her and admitted, “There is nowhere I would rather be.” His words made Sara look at him, puzzled; but unable to dwell on the meaning of his words, she asked, “Can you take me to the hospital?” He nodded silently.

  When they arrived at the hospital, they were sent to the waiting room. “Only family allowed; I’m sorry,” the nurse said. Sara tried to call Ben, but he didn’t pick up, so she sent him messages.

  “I feel so guilty,” she muttered, looking at Joshua, who led her to a corner and sat her down.

  “What do you mean you feel guilty? You didn’t give her those pills, did you?”

  “No, of course not, but it’s because of me she killed herself.” Sara sighed.

  “Hang on, she tried to kill herself, right? Let’s try to stay positive here.”

  “Everyone has been so hard on Amber since the party. I mean, anyone could see she was sad, and she tried to apologize to me, but I was too proud to accept her apology; if I had only...” Sara started crying again.

  “Stop it, Sara,” Josh pleaded gently. “Only Amber can say what went on in her mind. It may not have been about you at all.”

  “It was!” Sara brushed him off.

  “What about Ben? She kissed him. Could it be that she was crazy about him and the reason she tried to commit suicide was because she couldn’t have him?”

  Sara looked up at Joshua with big eyes. “Do you think that’s the reason?”

  “It’s possible,” he said with a loving expression on his face. “I danced with a girl that night and even though I have tried, I can’t get her out of my mind; I think about her smell, her skin, her eyes, her lips – I think about her a hundred times a day. If Amber feels the same way about Ben, I don’t blame her for being miserable about not getting him.”

  Sara looked at Joshua. He danced with a girl. What girl? Is he talking about me? Had he really been thinking about her a hundred times a day? Her heart skipped a beat. “Me?” she whispered in disbelief.

  Joshua raised his eyebrows. “You know, Sara, for someone who is supposed to be awfully intelligent, you are pretty slow. Who else would I be talking about?” He looked at her earnestly. “Ever since you got lost that first day of school, I have wanted you.”

  Sara dried her eyes, looking fragile and honest. “But you make me so confused, Joshua. I never know if you like or dislike me.”

  Josh shook his head. “I didn’t want to like you, Sara, but I always have. How could you not see that?”

  She looked down. “I guess I couldn’t believe that someone like you would be interested in someone like me,” she finally explained.

  Josh pulled back in surprise. “What? Why would you say that? You are totally out of my league, Sara.”

  “I’m what?” Sara looked at him like she couldn’t believe what he was saying. “How can I be out of your league, when you’re the dream boyfriend of every girl in school?”

  Josh frowned. “That’s not true, and you know it. You are super smart. I’m not. I only play the guitar.”

  Sara looked decisive and her eyes locked with his. “Well, that’s good enough for me.”

  Her resolute words made his eyes widen, and a big smile spread across his face. “Does that mean what I think it means?” Joshua eyes were glowing with glee.

  “What do you think it means?” Sara spoke the words slowly and looked into his magnetic green eyes.

  “You and me.” Joshua squeezed her hand with a beaming glow of happiness on his face.

  “You and me.” Sara smiled shyly, and the taste of those words made her heart do somersaults inside her.

  Just as Joshua leaned over to kiss Sara, a small bip sound interrupted, and Sara looked down at her phone. It was a text message from Ben. “Amber alive, staying with her till awake.”

  Sara jumped up. “She’s alive. Josh, she’s alive!”

  CHAPTER 15

  New life

  What was that noise? It wasn’t her usual alarm clock; it was more persistent and beeped more persistently.

  Someone should really stop that machine. It was getting on her nerves.

  Amber slowly regained consciousness and opened her eyes enough to see bright light and white walls.

  Is this heaven? Am I dead?

  She tried to turn her head, but her body didn’t react as well as it usually did. She opened her eyes a little more and looked around.

  Unless heaven looked like a hospital room, she was not in heaven. How could that be?

  She went through her plan again. Her mom was gone for a business meeting and wouldn’t be home before late evening. She had taken all the pills. He had been in the bathtub. So how did she end up here?

  She heard a sound. Someone was here with her. Slowly she turned her head and saw Benjamin sitting all quiet beside her, with a serious expression on his face that she had never seen before.

  “Hi,” she mumbled, feeling weak and distant.

  “Hi,” he responded and looked like someone who had been crying for hou
rs.

  “Is my mom here?” Amber asked softly.

  “She’s coming; she will be here any minute now,” Ben responded and took her hand.

  Amber felt dizzy. “Why are you here?” she asked very slowly, because speaking felt harder than normal.

  Benjamin moved closer. “We found you.”

  “We?”

  “Sara and me,” he answered.

  “How?” Amber couldn’t collect her thoughts.

  “She called you, remember?”

  “No.”

  “You sounded slurred, so she called me and said she was worried about you. We rushed over and we… found you.” Benjamin’s voice was almost a whisper when he said the last words.

  Amber’s thoughts were painfully slow as she tried to wrap her mind around what had happened from when she had lost consciousness until this moment.

  “But I was naked,” she said and looked at Benjamin, who was happy to see a bit of color in her cheeks, as she blushed.

  “Don’t worry, I didn’t look at you, Amber… not in that way, anyway,” he reassured her.

  Amber closed her eyes. It made sense. She knew how unattractive she had become. Of course he wouldn’t look at her that way.

  “Amber, we really need to talk. There is something I should have told you.”

  She didn’t want to hear it. More rejections, more misery – she couldn’t cope with more. She just wanted to go back to sleep.

  “Oh, honey…” Amber’s mom rushed through the door. Her hair was a mess, and her eyes were wild and red. She threw herself at Amber and started to cry.

  Benjamin felt in the way, so he walked to the door and said, “Amber, I will come by later, okay?” He didn’t hear Amber’s reply over her mother’s sobbing.

  As Benjamin walked down the corridor, he passed the waiting room and saw Sara running to him.

  “What happened? Is Amber okay?”

  “She’s fine,” he answered with a pale, sad face.

  “Can I see her?” Sara asked.

  “Her mom is with her. I wanted to give them some privacy.”