It was comforting to think that no matter what happened, what hit the fan, that she was always just a phone call away.

That night wasn't any different. I remember calling with tears streaming down my face and listening to her soft voice reassure me that the fighting wasn't my fault. My body shook from how tightly my fingers were gripping my jeans, and I couldn't allow myself to blink because I was scared to death of being hit.

She sat there and listened to every word. Not because she had to, not because it made her feel better, but because she cared. She'd been there when my boyfriend dumped me, when my cat ran away and I couldn't find her, during the battle with my mother. She was just always there. Being the type of person I was, I couldn't understand why she would want to stick around someone like me.

I was fat, ugly and far from perfect. What would a beautiful blonde girl want with a girl like me?

The night she said she loved me turned my life upside down. I didn't know why I was so confused. I had a great boyfriend, and "had everything going for me", or so said my father. I didn't understand why I was holding onto her so tightly or why I was scared to death of hurting her. It didn't make any sense to me why I thought that if I touched her she'd shatter like glass.

She called every night at exactly five pm. I'd learned to set my clock by her, and my whole night revolved around that phone call. We laughed, we cried, we helped each other survive. If she hadn't called by five ten, I was scared to death that something had happened. I guess I was just a little too paranoid. She never forgot to call.

The little things she sent through the mail made me know that I was loved. That stuffed puppy she sent me months ago, the one that used to be snow-white but is now a light brown. The time she sent me my A.F.I. t-shirt, I couldn't have been more thrilled. I was so happy that someone loved me enough to go out of their way to find something that I wanted so badly and couldn't get. The pictures became the one thing other than her that could brighten my day no matter what. Just small pictures of her when she was a toddler and a couple recent ones were enough to have me smiling for hours on end.

Somewhere around that time it hit me that I was falling in love with my best friend. It didn't matter that I didn't see myself as perfect or that I looked like shit in the mornings. She became my world. I knew she loved me no matter what and that's all that mattered to me. And honestly, I don't think I could ever let go of her.

I started living for one person and after so long; I didn't want to die anymore. The self-injury fell away, the eating disorder took second place and I could feel again. I was waiting for prince charming to show up on his white horse and take me away, but instead I got a princess that saved me. Some screwy fairy tale huh? Oh well, it's fairy tale and I still got to live happily ever after in the end.