Getting from there to here wasn't as easy as everyone thinks it was. Where we were then and where we are now is nothing short of a miracle.

There were long depressions and prescription drugs and suicide attempts, but mostly there were tears. You cried in big, choking sobs to drain the hopelessness out of your heart and I cried silently into your hair, hugging you tight and wondering why I couldn't do a damn thing to stop your pain.

I loved you, wasn't that enough?

Of course it wasn't, because I never told you. You never knew that it's all I ever thought about, all day, all night, all year, all my life. I loved you to the point where I couldn't function without somehow touching you. A hand on the shoulder, a high five, a kick in the shin; I would take anything at all to reassure myself that this connection was real.

I've spent my life wanting to make you happy, wanting to protect you, wanting to be the one you came to when you needed someone. I wanted to be the answer to all of your questions, I wanted to pick you up when you fell, I wanted to hold you up in my arms to make sure you'd never fall again.

I wanted to tell you every time I said it in my head. You'll never know how much my head has told you I love you. For years, throughout your agonizing battle with chemical imbalances and inner demons, all I wanted was to tell you how I felt. But then, I think you needed me too much for me to risk our friendship like that. We needed each other, and to force the situation into an ultimatum; I could never imagine leaving your side at a time like that. What if you were repulsed by my confession and never wanted to see me again? How would I be able to help you then?

So I promised myself I'd wait till you got better.

But then you weren't getting better.

It was a spiral. I thought that the depression itself was the worst it got, until the hallucinations started. When the mania kicked in, our lives turned to complete hell. You were seeing things and hearing things and feeling things and it was driving you out of your own mind. I didn't know what to do, and you didn't either. You decided you couldn't take it anymore.

They committed you for five days after you tried to OD on your medication. I think that place only made it worse, because the depression magnified afterwards. I mean yeah, it cleared up for a while and you were pretending to be feeling better, but it seems that the good things in life are always too short to hold onto. You got into drinking and every ounce of self-esteem and courage you had wrangled during hospital time was shot to hell. You plummeted.

I remember a phone call, and rushing to your house, sitting on your bathroom floor. You had a gun in your mouth and I had a knife to my throat, both of us sobbing as I screamed that if you went, I would go with you.

That was twenty minutes ago.

It's raining now, icy, cold and wet as my toes slosh through the drowning grass. I'm panting, leaving my gasping breaths behind me in a wake of fading white, but we're alive. I don't notice it when my lungs are burning, when my calves threaten to buckle beneath me, when I start getting so dizzy with the lack of oxygen that I'm stumbling into you. We are alive, and you made that choice for us.

Although we'd both like to say we're running somewhere, I think we're really just running away. I was sick of being helpless and you were sick of being hopeless and so you grabbed my hand and pulled me out into the night. We flee in our teeshirts and I feel mine being adhered to my chest with freezing wind and rain. My bare feet sting as they crash through puddles and field, en route to nowhere but the back of your heels. I know we aren't really going anywhere, but it doesn't really matter. We both need it too much to stop.

Through an endless field, through the autumn, through the dying trees and the darkness we run. Behind us is the home that made you crazy; it's the drunken mother that told you you were worthless, it's the drunken father that beat you so far into the ground that you began to think it was where you belonged. It's endless screaming and bottles shattering and enough tears to form a small ocean. Behind us is the home that was never your home.

I was your home. I was always the one that loved you, that was there when you needed me, that gave you advice when you were lost and soothed you when you were upset. I made you chicken soup when you were sick and I asked how your day was. I saved you from yourself when they couldn't. I love you more than you've ever been loved, I love you more than I've ever loved anyone. Why don't you know that?

This is it, I decide as we run. No more fucking around with this. You are going to get better, and you are going to get better if it's the last thing I ever do. I'm sick of worrying that I'll wake up one morning and you won't be there. I'm sick of wiping away your tears, I'm sick of you being miserable when you are so alive and have such a powerful life in you. You can move mountains, but you're too busy making rivers. It has to end.

I reach forward and pull your hand and we stop, skidding in the rain. You whirl to face me and you're panting, shaking, so spent you can barely stand. You've been crying the whole time, I can see from the swelling of your vacant eyes. It breaks my heart, but I resolve that this will be the last time it ever breaks.

"You want something to live for?" I yell at you, filling fierce with passion. I'm sobbing, I think; I can't seem to get a full breath of air. "DO YOU?"

You stare blankly at me, confused, wanting something, waiting for the one answer that would solve every problem you ever faced. You're so lost, it kills me. I can't imagine what you feel.

"LIVE FOR ME!" I tell you, throwing my hands out. "Fucking live for me! I've given you everything in me for our entire lives, I've given you EVERYTHING! I have done everything for you to see that you are the most amazing person I have ever known, and you were just going to END IT! You were going to fucking die and leave me here alone after everything I ever did for you, you selfish fucking bastard. If there is one reason you should stay alive tonight, and tomorrow, and for as long as you possibly can, IT IS ME!"

You won't stop staring at me. The anger welling up in me is surprising to both of us, and I have to take a moment to calm down and breathe.

"Everyone thinks you are a lost cause, Adam. They think you're too far gone, they want to put you into a fucking mental hospital for the rest of your life and do you know why you're not there yet? Because of ME. BECAUSE I KNOW YOU CAN BEAT THIS. I know who you are and what you can be and I know you are strong enough to come out of this, alive. Let me help you do it, please."

The silence between us is painful, and the sound of the autumn rain falling burns my ears. It transforms from a slight rumble to a deafening scream, like someone is dying. I almost want to cover my ears. I watch you as I'm breaking apart inside, and the adrenaline slips from my body. I'm left weak and listless, and emotionless in your quiet. I can feel myself crying now; they're tears provoked by your own as they roll down your cheeks and mingle with the falling rain.

"Do you hear what I'm telling you?" I whimper without having intended to whimper. "Do you hear what I'm saying? I live for YOU, Adam, why don't you try and live for me for a change? I'm so tired of picking you up ... I just want to hold you."

Your mouth opens, closes, opens, closes. You sob again, and hugs yourself, and look down at your shoes. You look back up at me and you can hardly push the words from your throat. "I thought you didn't love me."

I feel my insides sag and wonder how you could ever come to that conclusion. I can't speak; I hold out my arms helplessly to you, but you make no motion towards me.

"I thought you hated me, because I was sad all the time. I thought I was bringing you down and you hated me. I thought if I died it would be easier for you."

I'm shaking my head violently and biting my lip, because if I try to talk I'll start wailing, sobbing, bawling, and never stop. I move closer to you, uncertain on whether or not you want me there. You fall against me without warning, crying, and we sink to the ground. Cold, wet, and shivering in each other's arms, the dark settles in and swallows us whole as we tremble with aching sorrow.

"I love you, Adam," I murmur to you as you fold yourself into my arms. I repeat it over and over again, like a mantra, wishing with everything I had that these words could somehow heal you for good. "I love you, I love you ..."

We sit on the ground all night, shifting slightly against each other but for the most part unmoving. After we've both calmed down, we don't talk. We just lay back in the grass huddled against each other, eyes closed as the rain pelts our sticky faces. It stops, eventually, and after the hours of roaring rain there's an unearthly silence. We fall asleep, and the sun rises behind a thick gray blanket of clouds.

Take back your life and let me inside
We'll find the door, if you care to anymore

I'm kissed awake, quite surprised and presumably dreaming as I feel soft lips nipping lightly against my own. A nose brushes against my cheek and moves down to my chin, to the line of my jaw, to the crook of my neck to nudge me into consciousness. My eyes blink open slowly to the mass of goldenrod hair lying across my chest. You'd been leaning up over me, I think.

"Adam..."

My voice comes as a hoarse whisper and I feel how my back has taken the flat shape of the ground; it would be downright unbearable if the object of my affection wasn't sucking gently on my neck. You lift your head slightly, and you're smiling. Grinning, even. It's the first I've seen from you in months, and so infectious that I can't help but return it.

"Mornin'," You say, and prop yourself up on your elbows to look down at me.

I blink in the shadow of your lively eyes and realize for the first time that the sun is out. "What are you doing?"

You sigh as though it's impossible to explain yourself, and lean closer to me. Your smile becomes a flickering ghost of what it was and your gaze is deep, probing. "I think last night was the only thing I ever needed," You tell me, fingers running down to grasp my hand in some sort of final declaration. "I think you saved my life, forever."