It was no secret that Callum and I were in love. We had been since we met on the first day of boarding school - the epitome of love at first sight. Nothing could keep us apart. Together the two of us had faced problems that no thirteen year old could ever dream of facing; we fought often but fixed our issues just as quickly as they'd arisen. After three years of being inseparable I had started to believe that we would always be together - forever. He felt the same. Callum and I were very different on the face of things; we were a typical Hollywood movie couple. He was sporty, popular and confident - everything I had ever dreamed of; on the other hand there was me - quiet and invisible to everyone but my small group of friends. I'd never forget the day he surprised me at the football game - I can still hear the sound of the half time whistle in my mind still when I remember how he used the cheer team to ask me out as I took the photos for my latest project. I remember it as clearly as the day he died...

Even now, a year later, the deafening wails of the ambulance and the hurried panic of everyone in the room tear through my mind destroying all the strength that I could muster at one time. Some classed his death as a suicide and some said it was an accident - I blamed myself. I should have seen the signs and known that it wasn't all over; I should have helped him. I can't help but think that if I'd been less bothered about helping myself then maybe he'd still be alive now...

When I'd met Callum, long before I knew he felt so strongly about me, I knew that he was trouble; he was the school's 'bad boy' -  part of the crowd that people both envied and stayed clear of... yet I was drawn to him like a moth to a flame. I knew he smoked, I knew he did drugs, I knew he drank; I knew all these things about him that I'd always been so against and yet I loved him still. Within two weeks of being lab partners in science, which he was surprisingly good at, he'd stopped it all. Suddenly he was a person I'd never known before and yet nothing could deter me from him; he was now someone I loved more if that had been possible. All his time became dedicated to working hard, he was a better team mate and most of all he was a more trusting person. A month after stopping the drugs and the drinking he'd even left his group at school which was a shock to the entire year. One of the girls, who I imagine must have liked him a great deal, was in the room down the hall from me and my room mates; she cried for a day straight and often blamed me though I never understood why until that day on the football field. I'd always thought he stopped for himself but I'd have never have guessed at that time that he'd stopped it all for me...

From the moment he left his group of friends Callum became the most caring, sympathetic and real person I had ever met; he was open about everything and never hid how he really felt. Suddenly the way everyone saw him wasn't important to him anymore. In science we became good friends and then when we were told to sit wherever we wanted in English he sat sheepishly in the seat next to me; to me he was what got me through everyday but to him I was nothing but a friend. Eventually we became very close and swapped phone numbers; soon we began to study together in either our rooms or in the library - at first many people were shocked but we never even noticed the odd pairing of the the sports man and the photography nerd.

Right before Christmas it was announced that George, one of the boys in my room, was leaving and so giving me, Alison, Carrie and Mason a spare room. Knowing that Callum was applying to change rooms away from his old crowd I told him about the spare space in our room; for a while we had a brother-sister relationship before it started to become something more...that was when the football field incident occurred. After we started dating things were as perfect as anyone could imagine - we studied together still, we went out on weekends, our room mates were completely supportive of us and we couldn't be happier. By this time we also knew quite a lot about each other - he knew that I had adoptive parents and no one knew who my real parents were; I knew that his dad was dead and his mum had never gotten over it. Things were great between us until the day I found out that both my adoptive parents had died in a car accident when coming to surprise me for the weekend...

Callum came with me to the funeral although we didn't speak much; he must have felt so awkward and out of place at a funeral where the only person he knew had gone mute for the day. The week that followed proved to be no better for me and I found myself locked away in my room every day speaking to no one and eating nothing; before long Callum and the rest of my friends had begun to worry... in the past week I'd refused all food, all contact with anyone and hadn't so much as been anywhere outside of the room. The only times anyone saw me was when I walked from my room to the bathroom or to get my share of the washing from the dryer. A month later I'd snapped myself out of it after having looked in the mirror one day and panicked. Suddenly the clothes I wore hung limply on my body and I found that I'd dropped a whole size. The support of my friends and teachers and especially Callum got me back to my usual self in a short time and I never stopped being grateful for their interference in my straggling health. Despite my physical health being back to normal my mental health certainly wasn't. I'd gotten into the habit of once a week sneaking out of my window at night to meet with a dealer I'd seen talking to Callum when I first met him.

I'd stick my head out the bathroom window once a day with the shower running and smoke until I could barely remember where I even was. The day Callum caught me was the day of our first fight. He knew I was better than that. He knew I was punishing myself for something that wasn't my fault. He also then began to find the many bottles of drink I'd stashed under my bed and saw the marks on my arms; he got me help instantly. It was only then that I realised my own depression and rejection of him was having similar effects on Callum. He had worried himself sick and then he began to join me with the smoking and the drinking but he never told me why. Seeing him destroy himself like he was brought me back to reality and I began the long desperate struggle to fix my life; when I had sorted myself out I sorted him out. Or so I thought... turns out after two months of being clean Callum relapsed and never came back from it. I never knew. No one did.

The disappearance of his mum and then the death of his uncle put Callum in a place he couldn't come back from - but he told us he was fine and we believed him. He never showed any signs of being anything other than fine and so we ignored the truth of what was happening in his life. In the end it was me who found him. I opened the unlocked bathroom door assuming he had gone to his football game. The smell hit me like a painful slap in the face and after that everything went in slow motion...

In a blur I raced to the edge of the bath and almost tore the curtain down off the rails and to the floor. By then I was crying and screaming as I saw his body laying slumped in the bath - bathing in a sea of smoke. Hearing my screams everyone else dashed into the room to witness the smoky hell in which our bathroom had turned into. In the swirling mayhem I sat shaking, curled up in a tight ball on the floor; I felt the strong hands of mason leading me from the room and into my own bedroom as I heard someone crying on the phone. I don't recall anything in between that moment and being guided into the ambulance - it was all a hidden memory that I had suppressed for so long that I forgot it completely. Then they told me what I already knew but had begged not to be true...

Callum was gone...

Everyday I think of him and of how I could have - should have - saved him. Why didn't I do something? Why?  Then the bell for class rang and I rose from my seat, went to my room and cried...