“Wake up! Wake up!” the mobile alarm started ringing and she, still half asleep, reached for her phone and put it on snooze again. It was 4:20 in the morning and dawn was yet to arrive. She lay sleeping on her soft-blue bed, upon which were lying some torn papers and an old photo frame. After a few minutes, the alarm started ringing again waking her up with swollen eyes and an empty heart. I was right there, beside the door, witnessing her injured dreams and her struggle of keeping herself together from falling apart.

This girl, my favourite person, bought me home on her last birthday from the most famous shoe shop of this town. I still remember how she took two hours to decide which pair of footwear would suit her and reluctantly chose a pair of black belles but luckily, her gaze fell upon me and she instantly picked me throwing those belles aside. Since then I became her all-time favourite pair of blue sneakers whom she wore during tuitions, school, dance class and almost everywhere. The stars in her eyes and that half-dimpled smile are the two things she never forgets to wear even in the coldest days of her life.

But today, helplessly watching her giving upon herself is tearing me apart. I wish I could tell her that this is the starting of a fresh journey of everlasting experiences but I couldn’t. I’m just ‘a helpless pair of shoes’.

As she rose from her messy bed; she pulled out a black diary from her closet and started reading every word loudly with a quiver in her voice.

“Stories which do not break you into pieces and atoms are worthless. Words sometimes fail to weave magic and leave you alone in cold.”

She stared into nothingness and read again.

“Pebbles and crystals are both stones. I want you to choose pebbles too. Sometimes it’s all about the choices we fail to make.”

She sighed and kept the diary aside and whispered to herself, “How could she do this to me? I don’t want to be the wise one. I miss her. I..... Miss... You  Mom.” Yesterday I thought that this might be the hardest day of her life seeing her mother going to a mental asylum due to her severe case of depression and self harm. An abortion of her second girl child had left her depressed and over the years it grew into a severe depression. She yowled when those two ugly looking ladies from the asylum were taking her in their van, but all in vain. All she did was to sit on the floor, wailing on her biggest loss. First, she lost the attention of her mother in the past few years and now she was left alone with her mom’s diary, an aunt and a manipulative father who was the sole reason behind this misery.

But I was utterly wrong; today is her hardest day. Grieving upon a loss is easy but to embrace your falling self when hand shivers and hopes start taking a deep nap is difficult for people who are in love.

She grabbed that diary again and opened the last page written by her mother, “If only I had the courage to stand for my desires; things would be different. A cold heart is worse than the cold weather. And I failed to protect my heart from getting cold. I hate myself for not fighting.” Her eyes were wide open as she read those last words from her mother. She was numb for a while and I was again watching everything from the corner of the door, helplessly.

“But I will fight.” She uttered while collecting the lost stars of her eyes. Wearing a sad smile on her face, she tore a blank page from that black diary and started writing a note. Soon after she completed, she turned towards the clock on the wall. It was 6 o’clock. “I’ve to wait a few hours.” She murmured with a ray of hope in her big hazel green eyes.

Few hours later, she adjusted my sole and tied my tangled laces and we both went out with some papers in her side bag. We came back with a policeman who wanted to arrest her dad for his wife to abort a girl child. I have never seen someone's world falling apart in just 24 cruel hours. Today, I witnessed a storm inside a calm and composed girl. Strings inside her must have been disturbed or might be broken.

On that evening, with that dairy and note, we went to the asylum. Her mother passed her an incompetent look on seeing her with that diary. They didn’t exchange a single word of comfort. She simply passed that diary and note to her. As her mother opened that diary she found some lines highlighted with a green marker. She read, “Pebbles and crystals are both stones. I want you to choose pebbles too. Sometimes it’s all about the choices we fail to make.” Then she opened that note-

“Mom,

 I might not be your crystal but how could you forget; I too was a stone. In the sorrow of losing your crystal, you forgot that you had a pebble too. You were right it’s all about the choices we fail to make, but I made my choices. I choose you.

And I love you for giving me the courage to fight.

Love,
Pebble.”

Her mom smiled and muttered in a voice filled with tears, “I will fight too.”

I was witnessing the whole scene again but this time I didn’t feel helpless.