So, there I was, back at home and worried sick about a girl whose life had become more important to me in a few short months, than anyone else's had in years.
Shortly after I got back from visiting her, I met, in person, another online friend, who, on the day I met her, became both flatmate and girlfriend. Long story, and yes, I am aware of the impulsive stupidity of my actions in those short couple of months. However, everything happens for a reason, and what's done is done.
In May, about a week after C moving in, we were up late. At 1:30 in the morning, I received a message from Elf asking me to call her. I did. And will be forever grateful that I did.
She was in the bathroom of her house, with a needle against her arm, about to overdose on heroin after having swallowed I don't know how many of her anti-depressant meds. She'd relapsed, badly, and now she wanted to die. Nothing was worth living for in her mind. Yet she'd still found the strength to send out a plea for help to the one person who hadn't yet let her down. Me.
Why she chose me, out of the dozens of other people who lived so much closer to her, I don't know, nor do I care. She did. And somehow, after four hours on the phone, I managed to talk her out of killing herself, and into getting on a bus to come and stay with me and C for a while. I was determined that I wasn't going to lose her. Not when she was so young. Not when she hadn't even begun to live yet.
Somehow, someway, I'd find a way to fix things for her, and give her a life worth living. I didn't tell her then, but I'd already decided she wasn't going back home. Home was no longer a safe place for her. It was too easy for her to get lost in the drugs; in the lack of support, and love that was 'home'. It was too easy for her to die at home. At least I could make it harder for her to kill herself. I could show her that at least one person cared for and loved her.
I don't think that I really knew what I was getting into. I mean, I knew that I was taking a huge risk letting a drug addict into my life the way I was. I knew it was a huge responsibility and that so many things could go wrong. I knew all of the logical stuff. I've always been a logical, practical thinker. But emotionally, I had no idea what I was in for. Because all my emotions were saying was that I was not just going to give up on her. I couldn't.
And when I saw her get off the bus a day and a half later, looking like death warmed up, high as a kite on a gale-force wind... I knew I'd made the right decision.
Elf had come home, and somehow we'd make it okay.
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