Let Me Be The One To Save You

My key scratched in lock as I turned it and my front door opened slowly. I entered the house as quietly as possible. It was only 3 O’clock but I was terrified of angering Austin. The past few weeks he had been horrible to me. If I even breathed too loudly he’d snap at me. He scared me.
I crept past the living room door, my steps soft and catlike. I hoped to go unnoticed, but had no such luck.

“Ciara, is that you?” Toni sounded tired and worn-out. Sometimes I felt like such a burden to her. Her life had been perfect before I came along. All I did was cause grief between her and Austin.

“Hey Toni, what’s up?” I opened the door fully so I could see her. She was slumped in the armchair, looking almost defeated. Her usually perfect hair and make up had become a mess. This wasn’t the Toni I was so used to seeing.

“Your friend, Rachel is it? Yeah? Rachel called,” She mumbled to herself than me. She was lost in her own little world. Her only escape from the small disaster her life had become. I felt so guilty.

“Thanks,” I ran over to my aunt and pecked her cheek lightly. “I love you.”

Her eyes widened in surprise, her hand rising to touch the spot I had kissed. A smile spread across her face, the first one I had seen in days.

“Love you too.”

I returned her smile before dashing up the stairs to return Rachel’s call.

She answered on the twelfth ring, just when I was about to give up and hang up. The terrible connection made her voice sound crackly and older than her years, “Hello?”

“Rachel?” I asked thought I was already pretty much sure it was her. Her sister sounded nothing like her.

“Ciara?” She sounded happier immediately. “How’s life in The States?”

“Uhm… it’s pretty good actually,” I grinned, thinking of the five boys I had grown to love.

“Oh, so do you not miss us?” She sounded so sad and choked with tears.

“Of course I do!” Technically that wasn’t a lie. I did miss Ireland, but nowhere near as much as I had thought I would when I left it all those months ago. “But things aren’t as bad over here as I expected them to be.”

“Cool.”

Cool? Rachel never used the word cool. She was acting incredibly odd. Almost as if she was a completely different person to the Rachel King I had grown up with.

“What’s wrong Rache?”

She sighed, making a loud crackling sound through the receiver, “I don’t know anymore C. Everything’s just been so shit since Fergal died.”

She sounded so like I had when I had first moved to Belleville. Apathetic. Unwilling to move on. Nothing had made sense without Ferg. Everything seemed pointless without him. Maybe it was only hitting Rachel now. Maybe realisation had only just hit her. She was grieving.

“I know how you feel babe, it’s only in the past few weeks that life has started to make sense without him.”

The stars outside my window caught my attention and as I waited for Rachel to reply I began to think. I wondered if Fergal was up there, somewhere, among the stars, or if there even was anything after we left this cruel world behind us.

“Ciara?”

“Yeah?”

Rachel sounded like she was crying but I didn’t know what to say. It’s difficult to comfort someone when you can’t see them.

“When Fergal died… I was so scared.”

“So was I,” I admitted. I had been terrified. Life without my best friend? Impossible to even fathom. But, I guess we were all a little scared. None of us had really been exposed to death before, and certainly not suicide. “But I think I’m starting to become brave once more,” I told her honestly. “I’m moving on with my life and think that I may actually be happy doing so. Maybe, one day, I’ll be able to complete my Bucket List - even without him by my side.”

“I hope I can be as strong as you Ciara,” She exhaled loudly and I had to hold the receiver away from my ear so as to avoid being deafened. “But enough about me, tell me about this Gerard guy you wrote to me about. He sounds nice.”

A goofy smile plastered itself across my face as I told her all about Gerard Way. My new best friend.



It felt like Rachel and I had only been talking for a few minutes but when I looked at the time on my phone I saw it had been over two hours.

“Shit! Rache, I’ma have to go. Phone bills.”

“Oh okay,” She sounded a lot happier than at the beginning of our conversation. “But can you promise me something?”

I bit my lip - a nervous habit of mine - before replying, “Uhm… I guess. What is it?”

“If anything else bad happens,” She paused and I could hear her take a deep breath. “Promise me you’ll never feel afraid. That’ll you’ll be braver next time. That you’ll look after everyone and keep them strong.”

It was an odd thing to make me promise and my brow furrowed in confusion, “What do you mean?”

“Just promise me,” She sounded desperate. Like she needed me to make the promise.

“Uh… I promise.”

“Thank you Ciara.”

The phone clicked and she was gone. No goodbye. Nothing. She just hung up.
I shook my head in confusion before going back downstairs to Toni.