Get the Kleenex tissues ready: this story WILL make you cry like a baby! (It did for me)

        Regarding that long-ass post I posted yesterday about the teen drug abuse, I'd like to share the story behind it.

     The story starts when I met Kelly (I'm calling her Kelly), a 13-year-old girl who belongs to the emo group at my school. I've always been a really happy person, and so I stray clear of those kind of people. But when I first met Kelly, I didn't think she was emo at all... in fact she seemed really happy.

    She was sort of a player though, going out with several guys over short periods of time. She looked like the most popular, happiest girl in the entire school! I mean, she's got the looks, the boys, and the clothes...
     She knew a lot of people. BUT it didn't look like she had a lot of friends. Even though she was around so many people, if you look carefully, you could tell that she was different from the rest. Sometimes I swear I could see the loneliness in her face.

     When I first talked to Kelly I was surprised at how unexpectedly friendly she was. Usually, people like her turn out to be total snobs. But I guess at that time I didn't know her at all, because the happiness everybody saw was just a feigned fascade; a show she had put on to fool people.
     As I grew closer to her, I learned a lot of things that were almost unbelievable. She had let me into a little secret of hers. She had told me that her mom and dad passed a long time ago. And that wasn't very surprising, because most people at our school already knew that.

     What she never told anyone was that... that it was her own father who killed her mom. Kelly never knew much about her dad, except that he was in a gang, which meant he always carried a gun or a switchblade with him. I'm not going to dwell in this too deep, because I could feel the tears swelling up in my eyes already. But, all I can tell you is... he shot me. Boom. Just like that. And what's worse was she was there through all of it. My best friend watched her father kill her mother. Every single painful second of it.

       And if you looked at Kelly's wrist, you could see multiple cuts and scars. I usually wondered why she would always come to school with a wristband on or wear long sleves. It's painful to see her hurt herself behind everybody's backs. She lives with her Grandma, who doesn't know half of the things she does to herself.
  
     How she cries herself to sleep every night. How she cuts herself to numb the pain. How she dreams about how her mom could've hugged and embraced her if she were still alive today. How she resented her father and still loved him at the same time. She would always think about where he was now, because he had fled not long after her mother's death. Till this day, the police are still looking for him.

        It makes me cry every time I see a fresh new cut on her wrist, and I beg her to stop. But she wouldn't listen. She never listened. Rarely, I would see her smile genuinely... and she had the most beautiful smile that ever blessed a face. Oh, how I wished it was me and not her.
       I thought about how ungrateful I was for my content life. How I loathed my Dad for reasons ridiculous compared to her dad. How I took everything for granted.

       Shortly after, I had learned that Kelly was slipping drugs. After accidently finding pills and weed in her pockets, she finally admitted it to me. I knew instantly that I couldn't stand by any longer. I knew I should've something when I found out she was emo, but I was afraid I'd lost her as a friend if I told. She trusted me; I couldn't bear to see her hurt anymore than she was already.

       I was one of the only few things she had left in her life that she had to live for.      

       But finally I had came to one final decision after thinking about it during restless nights. I had to do it. I didn't care if she hated me, because I wouldn't let her destroy the little bit of life she had left. I told her Grandma, but she wouldn't believe me, instead her Grandma blamed it on me, saying that I was a bad influence on Kelly.

       I knew no matter how hard I tried, her Grandma wasn't willing to face the truth; it was simply too much for her to handle, so she swept it aside like it was nothing more than dust. So I told everybody I could tell. I told the teachers, the counselor, my parents, the police. I felt guilty through the whole process, but I knew I had good intentions. The adults told me I did the right thing. I had a lot of doubt regardless.
 
         One day I woke up to find out that it had been several moths since I last saw Kelly. I knew she was in rehabilitation, and getting the help and therapy she needed. But I still had the knot of uncertainty in my stomach.
         I wondered if Kelly had gotten all the letters I'd written her. I wrote to her frequently every week. Out of all then dozens of letters that I'd written to her, that reply I eagerly waited for never came.

       Maybe she had forgotten me. Or maybe she dispised me too much to even read my letters. I still remembered vividly the facial expression she gave me when she found out that it was me, her best friend who betrayed her.
     
       I guess I can't say what I really want to say at this point. I wish I could just write "we were best friends again and she lived happily ever after" because I don't know that.
        But I felt a million times better when I had finally received her letter in the mail a month after that day. I cried, reading her scrawled handwriting.

       She had informed me that she believed she was finally going to be okay now, after 13 years of misery and desperation. She had always been lonely and lost... and she felt "founded" now. She told me to smile; to be happy for her every day until the day she would come back and embrace me in her arms. She thanked me several times in that letter.

       "You're the best damn thing that happened to me," she said. Those words meant so much to me. They were proof that she had forgiven me. And this may sound super cheesy, but they were the answer to my prayers.

       So, I'm patiently awaiting the day Kelly comes back, feeling hopeful. And these past few days of school, I've heard many rumors about various kids slipping drugs. The hardest part was to find out that the rumors were true.

       I realized that I couldn't save everyone who did drugs at my school; there were simply far too many, most that I don't even know of. But I'm going to try. I'm saving as many lives as I could, and even if I could only save one person out of all, I feel accomplished. I feel like... like I just did something so much greater than God. (;O Did I just say that?)