She left me a letter. Handwritten. Four pages. She said she loved me more than anything, which was why she had to leave — because the thing inside her wasn't going to get better if I was the safety net underneath her, and she didn't want to destroy me the way she'd seen her mother destroyed. She said she was going to Omaha. Her father was going to take her to meetings. She said she'd call me when she was a year clean. She said she wasn't asking me to wait. That was three months ago. She hasn't called. I don't know if she will. I still have the recorder — it's in my desk drawer, the memory card still inside it. Sometimes I take it out and look at it. I tell myself I'd do it again. I tell myself I saved us both. But the truth is I don't know if I saved anything, or if I was just the person who tore the bandage off a wound that had been bleeding for twelve years before I ever met her. So tell me — was recording her the worst thing I've ever done, or was it the thing that finally gave her a chance?

* Story inspired by real-life situations. Names and details have been changed for privacy.