Amelia just lay there, blue white and so cold to the touch while they waited for the ambulance. And there was blood everywhere, it seemed. It was coming from long, ugly wounds on Amelia's wrists, wounds that were still seeping blood onto the frozen ground.

"Elliott, please go tell Pepsi and Gordo what's happened."

He was rising to do her bidding when she spoke again.

"No, wait, first go get some tape."

"Tape?" he repeated, confused. "What kind?"

"Painter's, duct, electrical, masking--" She realized she was babbling. "Any kind, look in their garage. Then do the other, then wait in the driveway so you can point the ambulance here, okay?

"Go!" she prodded when he remained motionless, staring at Amelia.

After he'd gone, Ruthie took her coat off and covered Amelia with it.

"Oh god, Mel, what have you done?" she asked.

Amelia didn't respond, but merely remained still, as if she were an extra in The Walking Dead. Ruthie wondered if she should be trying harder to wake her up, but she knew nothing about first aid, and she was afraid she'd do something wrong.

Elliott was back almost immediately with a large roll of black tape, and he helped Ruthie tape her wrists up, so the blood wasn't just running out of her body.

"Are you sure that's the right way to do that?" Elliott asked as he simultaneously sent Pepsi and Gordon texts.

Ruthie shook her head. "I have no clue," she said, roughly brushing her tears away. "But blood belongs in her body, I do know that, so it seems like an improvement, don't you think?

"Now go up to where their driveway meets the street, where the mailboxes were, so you can show the ambulance where to go when it gets here, okay?"

Elliott put his phone in his pocket as he nodded and turned to sprint to the mailboxes, but he stopped after a few steps.

"Are you going to be okay? Alone with her, I mean," he said.

"Yes, I think so, and Pepsi and Gordon are looking for us, anyway, they'll be here soon," she replied. "Go, I can already hear sirens."

She lifted Amelia's arms up in the air, hoping this would slow down the bleeding, hoping again that it was the right thing to do.

She could hear her friends' voices, calling her through the trees, and she yelled their names back to them, hoping they'd figure out where she was.

Gordon and Pepsi appeared moments later, eyes wide with shock and fright.

"Oh my god," Gordon breathed. He knelt and took one of Amelia's arms after first covering her legs, which were still exposed, with his own coat. "Has someone called an ambulance?"

"Yeah, that should be for us," Ruthie told him, nodding toward the road, where the sirens were very loud now.

Pepsi, who'd done nothing but stare since she arrived, made the sign of the cross and began to pray.

"None of that, please, she's not gone, she's still alive, still alive," Ruthie nearly chanted, pushing Amelia's hair off her cold face. "Please, please," she continued.

Other kids were appearing now, as the news mysteriously spread to everyone at the party. They remained a prudent distance away, huddled in groups of two and three, with some of them crying.

The ambulance arrived, with Elliott loping behind it, his breath visible in the glare of its slowly spinning red and blue lights.

"Please hurry," Ruthie begged. "Please!"

Elliott ran straight to her as the paramedics emerged from the ambulance. They weren't from Warren, so Ruthie didn't know their names, but they looked efficient, knowledgable and professional.

"Okay, you guys have done a great job with her, but let us take over now, okay?" the female paramedic, whose name tag said "S. Ruiz," asked as they gently moved Gordon and Ruthie out of the way.

"Do we know how long she's been out here?" the other one asked. His name was "W. Blankenship."

"I talked to her about twenty minutes ago, and she was fine," Elliott offered. "She was out here alone after that, so she must've just found the glass lying around--"

"Okay, ready?" the male paramedic, Blankship, asked his partner.

At her nod, they moved her onto a gurney which magically rose on expanding legs, until they locked it in place.

The woman took the dirty, bloody glass and put it in a red ziplock bag as they headed for the back of the ambulance.

"One of you can ride with her, okay? So we can get more information on our way to the hospital," Mr. Blankenship told the group.

Ruthie nodded, indicating that she would go, and Elliott gave her a quick hug and peck on the temple before releasing her.

"I'll follow in the car," he said.

As Ruthie was walking toward the ambulance, she heard Brett's voice coming from the crowd of teens who'd gathered to watch.

"Shit, I knew that cunt was crazy, but I didn't know how crazy, you know?"

Ruthie turned and ran to where Brett was standing, his arm around yet another girl.

"You asshole! This is your fault!" she shouted up in his face. Her hard slap landed a microsecond after she'd finished these words. "Don't you dare stand here with your arm around your current conquest and judge the girl you used and threw away!" She slapped him again, the sounds crisp, sharp and loud in the cold night. "You did this to her!" And she pulled her arm back to slap him again, but this time it was grabbed by Elliott.

"No, darling, there's no time to make ourselves feel better at the moment, okay?" He nodded toward the ambulance. "Go on, then, I'll be right behind you."

Ruthie glared at Brett a moment longer, then spat in his face before turning away to walk to the back of the ambulance and climb in, next to Amelia, who was strapped down and already had an IV going into her arm.

Brett didn't move, staring at Ruthie until the ambulance doors closed and they were on their way to the emergency room.

💥💥💥💥💥💥

The following hours were a nightmare for Ruthie, and she couldn't imagine what they were like for Amelia, if indeed she even knew what was happening to her.

After they'd been in the emergency room about fifteen minutes, Amelia's mother, who worked in the same hospital, arrived, crying, looking as vulnerable as Ruthie had ever seen her.

Finally, after they'd been there what seemed like hours and hours, after her dads had both come, after they were finally told Amelia was out of danger, only then did Ruthie succumb to her own, hopeless weeping.

She'd given blood, because she knew, from having been to blood donation drives before, with Amelia, that she was a match for her blood type.

Ruthie was looking at the tape on her arm when it all just hit her, and she began to cry. Elliott was off getting her some juice, and her dads were talking to Amelia's mom, comforting her. Ruthie opened the door of a convenient supply closet and sank down against the wall in the comforting dark, such a relief after the relentless brightness of the ER.

She sobbed quietly for a few minutes, arms wrapped around herself, until the door opened and Elliott looked in at her.

"I thought I saw you come in here," he explained. "Oh god, Jelly Bean, look at you--" and he sat down next to her, gathering her quaking body into his lap, tucking her head under his chin.

"Shh, shh," he comforted, rocking her a little bit. "She's okay, you're okay, we're all okay, yeah?" He rubbed Ruthie's back. "Your quick thinking probably saved her life, well done," he praised quietly, dropping a long kiss on top of her head. "You knew to stop the bleeding and elevate her wrists, you kept her warm, and most importantly, you let her know she wasn't alone."

"But Elliott," Ruthie sobbed, lifting her head so she could look at him with streaming eyes. "It's my fault she was even like that--" she was crying so hard she had to stop talking, and Elliott grabbed a handy paper towel and held it so she could blow her nose. "Don't you see? She needed someone, and I abandoned her. She's been alone, dealing with--with everything, all by herself--"

"No," Elliott corrected gently. "If anyone abandoned her, I'd say it was me. She knew that, because of what happened, you weren't in a place to offer her support, so she turned to me." He gave a little shrug. "Not trying to make myself sound important or anything, understand. I have no idea if she reached out to anyone else, but I do know that she tried, multiple times, to ask me for support, but I cut her off cold because I thought she was only asking for something I couldn't give.

"Right before you found her, in fact, I'd just come from rejecting her yet again, so you could even say that maybe I'm to blame for some of what happened," he concluded.

"No, don't do that to yourself," Ruthie implored, wiping her nose before continuing. "Amelia's had problems long before you said or did anything, for real. And so many things went wrong in her life that have nothing to do with you." She hugged Elliott, though it was awkward because of how she was sitting in his lap.

"There, now, see?" Elliott said, laughing softly as he stroked her hair. "Why can't you say those words to yourself, hm?

"No, I think the truth is that she did what she did because she felt that the entire world had turned away from her, you me, Brett, her mum, everyone," he emphasized.

"And I don't think she really wanted to do herself in, either."

Ruthie sniffed and looked at him in the near darkness of the closet. "Really? Why not? Did she say something to you?"

Elliott shook his head. "No. But if she'd really wanted to, she would've waited until she was well and completely alone, with no hope of being interrupted. Or discovered.

"She knew I'd probably gone off to find you, and that I'd tell you where she was," Elliott elaborated.

"And didn't you tell me she has access to a gun?" Elliot went on.

"Yes, her mother keeps one in her room. She worries because it's just them, two women, I think," Ruthie said with a nod.

"Well, that seems like a much more deliberate, not to mention permanent, way to end one's life, I think," Elliott said. "I think tonight was a cry for help, and now she's going to get it, you know?

"Here now, drink your juice, there's a good girl," he murmured, holding up the bottle he'd set down next to himself when he saw the state Ruthie was in.

Ruthie gave a tremulous smile as she accepted the bottle from him. "You're like my dads, you always take such good care of me."

"Well, you're the girl I love, the girl I'm hoping to have sex with in the next couple of years, so of course I want you to keep your strength up," Elliott quipped with a wink, nearly making Ruthie spit out her juice.

"And speaking of your dads, we should probably get out of this broom cupboard before they begin to worry, don't you think?"

Ruthie nodded, laughing. "Except in America we call it a supply closet," she corrected.

"Whatever, it smells bad, come on, let's get out of here," Elliott answered.

Ruthie nodded again. "Okay. And thanks for rescuing me."

"What are you talking about? You were just sitting in here alone, you were safe, you didn't need rescuing."

"You know I did, and you know you did. You're my knight in shining armor."

Ruthie pulled Elliott away from the door and put her arms around his neck, leaning up to kiss him, long and slow.

"Yummy, you taste like orange juice," he whispered. He kissed her again.

"Rescuing you is a pleasure, I'll do it any time you need, yeah?"