How To Save A Life

1. it's just a talk

Step one. You say, "We need to talk."
She walks, you say "Sit down, it's just a talk."
She smiles politely back at you,
You stare politely right on through.
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He watched her fiddle with the sleeves of her light grey sweater, pulling them down over her hands so her steaming coffee cup wouldn't burn them.

"You don't do this a lot, do you?" He questioned, the first thing either of them had said in the pat ten minutes. The small girl seemed surprised and her head quickly shot up as if she'd forgotten he was there.

"I mean, you never hang out with people at school," he continued. "And you don't seem very sociable out of school either."

It ended up sounding a lot more rude than planned, but he wanted to get straight to the point. Small talk wasn't part of the plan, but she hadn't exactly started an interesting conversation herself.

"Always such a charmer, Matt." She rolled her eyes at the boy, and this time he was the shocked one. She was the silent, innocent girl from home room who never uttered a word to anyone; how was she suddenly confident enough to be making sarcastic remarks?

"You know me," Matt shrugged, playing along with her joke. That's right, he thought to himself. Crack jokes, makes her smile, make this more comfortable. "If you want to speak to a gentleman you've come to the right place."

She let out a small chuckle and brought the steaming coffee cup to her lips, ignoring the slight burn it left on her tongue.

"Seriously though Cassie, do you not have any friends?"

"If your plan for today was to point out the obvious and upset me, you're doing really well."

The way she composed herself was so strange, and quite frankly Matt was taken aback. In school Cassie sat alone and stayed low down, off the radar. It was weird to see her like this, having a casual drink with a boy she'd never spoken to, making conversation like it was no big deal.

When he didn't reply, Cassie spoke up again. "Matt," she sighed, not knowing how to put it without sounding rude. "I really don't want to waste my time here. What do you want?"

There was always a catch. Nobody asks Cassie Robinson out on a Saturday morning to get coffee just for the fun of it - heck, nobody asks her out full stop.

"I wanted to go slow, but if you're impatient I'll just come right out and say it." Matt , putting his empty cup down on the table in front of him.

Cassie raised her eyebrows, waiting for the great explanation she had left the house and walked across town for.

"I think you're depressed," He blurted out, looking down afraid to see her reaction. He could only imagine the surprise on her face hearing that from him.

"Matt-"

"No. I don't want to get into how I know right now but I can tell that you're hurt and I can't just ignore that."

Neither of them said a word, Matt felt guilty about being harsh to someone he knew was in pain already. He instantly regretted what he said, and Cassie was starting to regret ever agreeing to meet him in the first place.

She made up her mind and pulled her bag onto her shoulder, standing up and taking her cup. Without bothering to speak, Cassie walked away from the table, leaving Matt behind her.

Once again, Cassie ran away as soon as someone tried to help her. This is what she did; something bad would happen, she would run and then feel worse later because she lost her opportunity to get help.

But before she could leave the cafe they'd been sat in, something strange happened.

Matt spoke up.

He was the first person to bother trying to stop her, and on the walk home she couldn't get out of her head the last thing he told her before letting her leave.

"You're broken, Cassie. You can walk away all you want but I swear one day I'm going to hug you so tight that all of your pieces stick back together."