Exhausted. Dehydrated. Hot. So much running was horrid and taxing, especially in the hot summer sun. I was panting like a dog, trying to catch my breath. The air was humid, like a smothering, scratchy blanket. I gulped down the sweet relief from my icy water bottle, and watched the condensation slip down the side of the bottle and onto my hand. Wow, it was cold! I walked in the door and collapsed on the couch, lying on my belly, which caused the couch to breathe “oomph!” under my weight. I stretched my body out, limbs splayed as far as possible to cool off. I pressed my hot cheek against the faded, cool leather and sighed from the contact. My phone pinged with a new text message. I groaned. I flipped over, sat up, and with half-hearted enthusiasm, dug my phone out of my back pocket. I got excited. Nadia had texted me! I had missed her all summer, and I couldn’t wait to talk to her. I opened my messaging app. What was written there made my heart plummet with an empty, aching pang. I don’t think I’ll ever forget it.

“I’m sorry,” read Nadia’s text, “Just remember that nothing is ever your fault. You had nothing to do with this.”

I was confused and hurt. What was going on? What would make her write that to me? My fingers fumbled their way across the keyboard, like they were lost and desperately searching for an answer. I sent one message after another, trying to reach her. I just knew something was terribly wrong.

“Are you okay?” I texted. “What’s going on? What can I do to help? Is this a prank?”

Text after text, question after question, call after call, and there was only dead silence. I used to believe that silence is a virtue, but not anymore. Silence is scary. After 20 minutes of panic and pacing, Nadia answered.

“Do me a favor and stop caring about me.”

I felt the tears sliding down my cheeks, but I would only remember them later. More and more texts kept coming from her, each one oozing with a hidden cry for help. I was bawling by then. She told me she’d been trying to overdose.

“I’m sorry,” Nadia wrote. “I’m just so tired of living through my family’s issues and trying to live up to expectations I CAN’T ever live up to. I’m a wasted space. And my parents have told me as much.”

At that point, I ran upstairs as fast as my legs could carry me, barged into my mother’s room and explained everything. I was in a catatonic state of worry and distress, so my mother pried the phone from my sweaty hands and called the suicide prevention hotline. After listening to a one-sided conversation, and feeling an overbearing weight hanging over my heart, my mom finally ended the call. They called the police and sent a police officer over to her house. Just in time too, apparently. Once she was stable, I called and she thanked me for saving her life. I don’t think I’ll get over that experience. It taught me that life is so vulnerable. You can have all the jewels and trinkets the world can offer you, but the pleasure reaped from those things is nothing compared to the simple joys of just being alive: the rain on my windowpane, the hugs and kisses I share, and the laughs fill me with bubbly happiness. I’ve learned to revel in the little things, because the little things mold us. Focus on the little things, and you’ll find that they’re the BIG things. These are the comforts of life that really matter. Life isn’t about waiting for the storm to pass, but learning to dance in the rain.