Chapter One CHAPTER ONE
FELICIA: National Suicide Prevention Lifeline, this is Felicia.

CHLOE: [sobbing]

FELICIA: It’s okay. I’m here. You’re not alone. You’re okay… can you tell me your name and where you’re calling from?

CHLOE: [more crying, the sounds of a car driving past]

FELICIA: Hello? I’m hearing some traffic around you.… Are you safe? Can you tell me where you are? Are you in danger?

CHLOE: Please… help me…

FELICIA: Are you in danger?

CHLOE: I can’t do this. I just can’t do this anymore. I can’t go to school tomorrow.

FELICIA: How come you can’t go to school? What’s going on there?

CHLOE: Oh my god.… There’s a video. I can’t believe there’s a video. They recorded it.… I didn’t know… I’m totally naked. [gulping breath] They’re sending it around and now everyone’s seen it. [breaks into sobs]

FELICIA: It sounds like you’re in a lot of pain, and I want to help you. You don’t have to go through this alone, okay? You’re not alone. I’ve got you. But first, I just have to ask you some questions to make sure you’re safe. Is that okay?

CHLOE: [deep breath] Yes.

FELICIA: Are you currently having thoughts about harming yourself, or not wanting to be alive?

CHLOE: [long pause] Yes.

FELICIA: Do you have a plan?

CHLOE: [softly] Yes…

FELICIA: Can you tell me about it?

CHLOE: My dad has a gun, and I know the combination to the safe. So that’s how I got it, but I’ve never used a gun before. I don’t know if I’ll do it right. What if I do it wrong? What if I screw it up like I screw everything else up?… That’s all I keep thinking about. Like, what if I do this, and it doesn’t work? [talking speeds up] What if I blow half my face off and have to live that way? Or I paralyze myself somehow so I’m stuck, like, trapped inside my body and I can’t try again? What if I don’t die? I don’t know how to shoot a gun. I—

FELICIA: Do you have the gun with you?

CHLOE: Yes.

FELICIA: And where are you right now?

CHLOE: I’m at the park.

FELICIA: A park? It’s very late… are other people there with you?

CHLOE: I’m alone. It’s just me, I think.

FELICIA: Can I ask why you’re at the park?

CHLOE: Because I didn’t want my parents to be the ones to find me. I couldn’t do that to them.… It would destroy my mom.

FELICIA: That was thoughtful of you. It sounds like you really care about your parents. Have you tried to talk to them about how you’re feeling?

CHLOE: Are you kidding me?! They’ll want to know what happened and I can’t tell them that. It’s so humiliating. No way. I can’t.

FELICIA: It’s okay. It’s okay.… Do you want to tell me what happened? Sometimes our callers find it helpful to talk about what’s on their minds, especially if they can’t talk about it with the people that are closest to them. I’m just here to listen, not to judge you. [pause] It sounds like the pain feels so intense that you’re thinking of—

CHLOE: [angry] I’m not thinking about it. I’m going to do it. I’m just scared I’m not going to do it right.

FELICIA: Okay, I hear you, but I just want to point out you did call me before doing anything, so there must be a small part of you that doesn’t want to do this, that wants to stay alive.… Don’t you think? Can we try to talk to that part of you? [pause] I know it hurts a lot right now, and feels like there’s no way out, but I really believe I can help you, if you let me.

CHLOE: You can’t help me… nobody can.

FELICIA: Sweetie, I understand you don’t see any hope right now, but I do. And not just because I’m trying to make you feel better.… I’ve been through a really dark period in my life, too. I know what it’s like to feel hopeless and alone. [pause] But what if I told you that you wouldn’t always feel this way? That this experience—whatever happened, whatever you went through—did not have to destroy you. What if you knew in three months, or a year, you’d feel better and whatever you’re feeling right now would be gone?

CHLOE: That’s not going to happen. I’m never going to feel better. Besides, even if I do feel better, everything’s ruined. My life is over. You don’t know what it’s like at my school. Everyone at Buckley is so fake and phony. They all just talk about each other behind their backs. And now they’ll never stop talking about me. They—

FELICIA: I’m sorry, did—did you say Buckley? Buckley Preparatory High School?

CHLOE: You know it? I thought this was, like, a random counselor or something.

FELICIA: Sure, I do. You know how you got that message in the beginning saying your call was being routed to the nearest center?

CHLOE: Mm-hmm.

FELICIA: 988 is a national hotline, and it’s staffed by people at call centers around the country. When someone calls, the system logs them by their area code, and then sends them to their local area, so we can help them find resources close to them. Wouldn’t do any good if I offered you a place to get counseling in Arizona if you live in New York.… So yes, I’m familiar with Buckley. But I’m also familiar with the other schools in the area. I just recognized the—

CHLOE: Oh my god, someone’s coming. I’ve got to get out of here. They’re coming!

FELICIA: Who is? Do you know them? Are you in danger? [pause] Please, just stay on the line. Can you stay on the line with me? Stay on the line with me. Just stay on the line…

CHLOE: [rustling, footsteps] I have to go. I have to go.

FELICIA: Please, let me help you! I can help you. Tell me where you are. I’ll get you help… don’t hang up.

CHLOE: [talking softly; breathing hard] I can’t! I’ve got to go.

FELICIA: Listen, I want you to listen to me very carefully. Are you listening? Please put the safety on the gun. Do you know how to do that? And then I want you to get to a safe place. Can you get to a safe place? That’s all you have to do.

[pause]

FELICIA: Take down my number, okay? Can you do that? I’m giving you my cell, so you can contact me directly. Please just stop and put my number in your phone. It’s 608-555-9982. Did you put it in your phone? Put it in your phone… 608-555-9982. Honey—honey, are you there? Are you safe? Please, just, just answer—

[line goes dead]

I jumped up from my desk and whipped around, searching for my supervisor, Phillip. He was already racing toward me with his headset wrapped around his shoulders. The cord dangled behind him. He must’ve yanked it right out of his computer.

“What in the hell were you thinking?” he screamed at me, waving his hands around. “You can’t give a caller your personal phone number!”

“That’s what you’re worried about right now?!” I grabbed his arm and pointed at my computer monitor. “We have to get her back on the line! How do we get her back? Did you call 911? I thought you were supposed to be calling 911!” The moment she mentioned a gun, I messaged him that we had a potential caller in need of emergency services, and he jumped on the line, per our protocol. We were the 911 of mental health, but sometimes, in cases like this, we had to call the real deal.

He shook his head and shoved me aside. He leaned over my computer and frantically typed, pulling up the call data while he talked. “I didn’t have her on the line long enough to track her.” Unlike 911, we didn’t have the capability to track people’s locations when they called in. Complete anonymity was exactly why the call center worked.

“What are we going to do, Phillip? What are we going to do?” This had been my biggest fear since I started volunteering at the center two years ago—someone hurting themselves while they were on the line with me. And it’s not like it hadn’t happened. Sometimes people were in real physical danger by the time they called us. They’d already taken a bunch of pills, or were in the middle of hurting themselves. And this girl wasn’t just a threat to herself—she was armed and it sounded like someone was chasing her, too. “Did you hear her say they were coming?”

He ignored me and continued working. Elaine rushed to join us and she stood next to me, putting her arm around my waist. We were the only ones working that night, since Sean had called in sick, and I was glad to have her by my side. We weren’t just colleagues. She was one of my closest friends, too.

“I’m sorry,” she said. She was actually the one that was supposed to take this call, but she’d been on a break so I’d grabbed it for her.

“It’s okay,” I replied as the data finally loaded in the queue. It’s not like she’d passed off a difficult caller on purpose. We never had any idea what was coming.

The dialogue box opened on my screen. I quickly unplugged my headset so we could all hear it and turned up the volume on my speakers. The three of us barely breathed as we listened, straining for any clues to who the girl was, where she could be now, or other things I might’ve missed in the moment.

My knees went weak and my heart stilled in all the places it had when I first heard it, especially when she mentioned Buckley Preparatory School. It was just as shocking hearing it the second time, even though I knew it was coming. It just reinforced how close this one hit home—my son, Hunter, was a junior at the same high school.