My toes grip the ledge as I lean back against the building, fear pounding in my chest. I look down below, clutching the wall behind me for dear life. Cars race by below me; I'm so high up that they're hardly bigger than my fingertip. The sounds of New York City surround me. Car alarms and noise; the pounding beat of music from a party two apartments down.

It took me 14 years to get into high school, and one semester for it to destroy me. For hideous rumors to cost me everything; my best friend, my boyfriend, my reputation. Simple lies spread from one lipstick smeared mouth to the next, more and more deformed every time it was retold. So disgustingly twisted that by the time it came back to me the truth was completely gone, hidden beneath a mountain of lies.

I'm not a whore. I didn't ask to do anything with him. Nobody knows what really happened; the repulsive truth that I've kept under wraps since that awful night when everything changed. I can't find it in me to tell everyone what Nick Ekridge did to me at that party. They wouldn't believe me anyway, nobody would. Nick Ekridge is a God at our school. I'm just a little nobody, a freshman. Who would believe me over him?

I would have been able to deal with it. I would have been able to keep the smile in place, fake the laughs. Go out with my friends, though I would have avoided parties. I could erase it from my life like it never happened. I could have done it if it weren't for the rumors.

It didn't stop at school. I got vicious text messages, awful facebook wall posts, threatening IMs, it was inescapable. Forcing me to remember a night that I only wished to forget. Taunting me. Even in my sleep, there was no way out. The nightmares ripped me to shreds, tore away at me piece by piece until there was nothing left. They drained me. I couldn't do it anymore. I knew this as I slipped on foot off the ledge, got ready to do what I had climbed out my bedroom window to do.

"Wait!" the voice startled me, almost enough to make me jump off the ledge, like I had been just about to do.

"Stop." the same voice said again. It was a deep voice, obviously a guy. I didn't recognize who. My head jerked around in the direction it had come from. It was a boy, like I had suspected. Around my age, maybe a year older. He was leaning out the window two rooms down from mine.

"I can't." I said, eyes connecting with his. They were a startling shade of green, like two bright emeralds. He had light brown hair that swooped just above them, "I can't do this anymore." I slipped my foot off the ledge again, glanced at him; begging him with my eyes not to watch. He seemed really nice, I'd like to spare him the trauma of watching a suicide.

"You don't want to see this. Go away." I pleaded, trying to get the mysterious boy to leave.

"Ever seen Titanic?" He asked. I watched in horror as he hefted one leg out of his window, then the other. As he slipped out onto the ledge, next to me.

"...What?" I asked. This was such an odd question to be asking someone that was about to hurl themselves off of a building.

"Remember that scene, where Rose is hanging off the front of the ship? What did Jack do?" He was slowly edging towards me on the ledge, reaching a hand out toward me. I stayed where I was, gripping the ledge, eyes still on the boy with the emerald eyes.

"You jump, I jump." He whispered, barely audible over the sounds of the New York City night. I was silent, frozen in confusion over why this guy, who had never met me before was so concerned about me.

"It doesn't have to be like this; come on. Come inside. Let's just talk. We can watch a movie. Don't do this." His hand was still out. Maybe, just maybe he was right. Maybe he could fix things. Maybe I could talk to him. Maybe things would get better. Just maybe.

I took his hand, and I let him save me.