"This girl will be the death of you if you're not careful, Henry. Sometimes you just have to put yourself first."

When my mom talks, I listen. She says things in this quiet, measured voice, and her words are so infrequent that it's nearly startling when she does speak out of the blue. At the time, I waited with one hand still poised to reach into the refrigerator, waiting for her to say more until I was convinced I hadn't heard it at all. But then she nodded, as if agreeing with herself, and patted me on the shoulder on the way out.

"Put you first." She said again.

Occasionally, the memory of her advice would creep across my mind, but sitting and staring at the ceiling in my bedroom one rare quiet night, I decided that it didn't matter what the half-whispered words had meant. What's wrong with helping somebody when they need it, you know?

But the thing is, Natalie needed more than I could give.

I reached into everything I had to offer and then some, hoping that it would be like throwing her a lifeline, something she could hold onto until she was ready to swim to the shore. I gave her time. I gave her support. I gave her distance when I thought she needed it. Say what you will about our relationship, but you can't say neither of us tried the best we could - Nat to keep her head above water, and me to do the same, I guess.

For awhile, it seemed like it was working. We could both see the shore and we were getting there slowly but surely. And one autumn afternoon after her mom left, she said those three one-syllable words that I'd been wanting, maybe even needing to hear.

"What?" I had said automatically, snapping my eyes away from the movie we were watching to search her face. The slightest blush had started to spread ever so slightly on her cheeks, the only color in the otherwise flawlessly porcelain skin.

It was one of those perfect early fall days, when the air smells so crisp you can practically feel it, too cold to go out without a sweatshirt but not cold enough to feel uncomfortable.

"Come on, Henry, you heard me."

I heard the defensive note in her voice and knew that if I dwelt on the subject, defense would quickly turn to annoyance, which would in turn lead to anger, and I didn't want that on such an incredible day, and right after she'd said, well...that. "Me too." I decided to say, and she leaned back against my shoulder with the comfortable motion that comes with familiarity; she wasn't quick enough, though, to hide the smile tugging at the corner of her lips.

We both pretended to watch the movie for a few seconds before she snorted with a brief chuckle.

"Hm?" I poked her in the side lightly. She squirmed - like I knew she would - and elbowed me.

"Me or you?" She asked.

"What?"

"I said 'I love you' and you said 'me too,' so you could have been saying you love yourself."

"Why the hell would I say that? I love you. Although I'm not saying I hate what I see in the mirror either," I teased her, and her chuckle blossomed into full out laughter.

"I don't know, Henry!" She exclaimed, and soon both of us were laughing and in that moment I remember her face perfectly. It was the last time I remember her laughing. I mean, really laughing, with her shoulders back and one hand flying to her mouth and her eyes just sparkling like nothing I'd ever seen before and nothing I'd ever see after.

Because Natalie went away. I still saw her going through the motions of living, but she wasn't really alive; not the Natalie I loved, anyway.

It wasn't that she went back to getting high. I still smoked occasionally - I mean, why the hell not? - but Natalie wouldn't touch any of it. She told me that she was getting her life the way she wanted it, and she wouldn't let anything get in the way of it.

I was proud of her for that.

What I've learned about Nat's childhood was gathered from a combination of stories from her and her father, pictures around their house, and general observation, and it seemed downright miserable. I remember the first time that I had dinner at her house, and her mom had baked a birthday cake for her dead brother. It wasn't a memorial birthday type thing, either. Mrs. Goodman actually thought that I was there to hang out for her son's 17th birthday party.

It wasn't just embarrassing to Natalie, even though she definitely was embarrassed. But she was as hurt as I was confused, which is to say we were charting on our respective emotions at like a 99 on a scale of 1 to 10. We smoked a bowl and just tried to forget about it, which seemed like the best way to deal with that kind of thing at the time, but later I found out that the incident basically summed up her childhood.

My family may have its share of problems, but one thing I can say is that they've always tried to do their best for me. I don't think that's happened in Nat's life. Sure, her parents tried their best to make things work - but they didn't try their best for Natalie. It was always about her mom.

So when her mom left in March of her junior year, that's when Natalie was able to start picking her life back up, gluing everything back together that her family had unintentionally broken inside of her.

She might have done it, too, if things hadn't spun so inescapably out of control.