I was rather puzzled when I heard it ring on that cool Wednesday evening. It was not strange that someone called me. After all, a telephone ring was almost as familiar to me as my own voice. It was that the call came on my cellular phone, which I only used for emergencies. The only other person who had that number was my roommate, and he was asleep in his room.

More often than not, a call to my cell was a wrong number. Since the number that appeared on the screen was unfamiliar, I assumed that to be the case this time. For some reason, I felt compelled to answer anyway.

"Hello?" I asked.

The answer came in a quiet, rather hoarse-sounding girl’s voice. "Hello? Who is this?"

"Well, you called me. Who are you trying to reach?"

"Umm…is Linda Bell there?" Now I was sure this was a wrong number. For a while after I purchased the phone, I got several calls for a Linda Bell, who must have owned the number before me. Her surname sounded familiar, and I often wondered if she was related to someone I knew in high school.

"I’m sorry, you must have the wrong number."

"Are you sure?" She read the number to me.

"That is the right number, but there’s no Linda Bell here."

"Oh…I guess…I won’t be able to say goodbye to her after all." There was a terrible sadness in her voice, as it became shaky and broken.

"Can I help you at all?" I asked.

"No," she answered weakly. "No one ever tried. I won’t see anyone again. I don’t want to."

"I want to help you if I can. To whom do you want to say goodbye? Are you going somewhere?"

"You don’t understand anything."

"You haven’t told me anything!" My concern grew almost as quickly as my frustration.

There was a short pause, and then she said, almost inaudibly, "Here I sit, staring at a piece of rope dangling from the ceiling. Here I sit, looking at a pink vase sitting on a small wooden table against the wall, and I believe that that vase will be the last thing I’ll ever see…" Her voice trailed off. She said a few other things, but too quietly to understand.

But I understood enough. "Wait, dear, wait. You’re saying you intend to kill yourself? Why?"

A long silence followed, and I was afraid I had lost her. "I’ve given it lots of thought," she finally said, hopelessly. "Years. Nothing changes. Just…"

"Changes? How old are you?"

"Seventeen."

"Do you think seventeen is old enough to realize how much things can change?"

She chuckled sarcastically. "I’ve learned enough."

"Are you even out of high school yet?"

She snickered again. "I was supposed to graduate in May."

"May isn’t for a few more months. Who says you won’t graduate?"

"Because…tonight is it."

"It doesn’t have to be."

"It does. I know you don’t understand, but it does."

This girl was obviously in trouble, and I had to keep her on the phone. I stumbled for what to say next.

"Well, what’s your name?" I asked.

"Aura."

"That’s a beautiful name. I once knew a girl named Aura in high school."

"Really? It’s not a very common name."

"No, it’s very special, and so was she. She was very pretty and well-liked. She had a handsome boyfriend, and I envied the hell out of him." I began to recall a photograph from my high school yearbook from freshman year. She was among the seniors. On the shelf between viewings, that book collected dust like it would be a valuable commodity someday.

"You liked her?" She asked.

"Very much. I thought I loved her."

"That’s all very nice, really, but that’s not me. My boyfriend’s a jerk. He only goes out with me because I look good on him. Everyone else is just distant. I might be thought of as ‘popular’ or ‘pretty,’ but nobody seems to care. Even my mother is hardly ever around."

"You have to realize that everyone else has their own problems and worries. They may try, but they can’t constantly think of how you might be feeling. If you’re hurting, you need to tell someone, and keep trying until you find someone who can help you." I paused for a moment, then continued, "Whether you realize it or not, a lot of people would be hurt if they lost you. It always hurts when someone you know dies, even if you hardly knew them. I learned that when I lost Aura." Nothing was said for a minute, then Aura showed a hint of curiosity.

"What happened to her?"

"Well, one evening, her mother came home late from work, and found her hanging from the ceiling."

"Did she leave a note or anything?"

"Oh, she called her mother, who tended to work late on Wednesday nights. She was away from her desk, however, so Aura ended up leaving a message on her machine."

"So, in the end, even her mother wasn’t there."

"She wished she was. She desperately believed that if only she’d been at her desk when she called, if only her daughter could have spoken to someone…"

"I wished I had someone to talk to, too. I tried many times, but…no one would listen. They’d say things like, ‘It’s not a big deal’ or ‘It’ll be okay.’ No one understands.

"Did they not understand, or did they not know what to say?"

"I don’t know. Both maybe."

"Well Aura, now I am here, and I am listening."

"Why do you care so much? You don’t even know me."

"It doesn’t matter. If I were hurting this badly, I would want someone to listen to me. Besides, the world has already lost one Aura. It would be awful to lose another."

"Maybe it’s for the better. I’m not worth much anyway."

"So you think that you’re worthless and don’t have a place in the world? Do you often tell yourself things like that?"

"Only when it’s true."

"Thoughts like that are never true, and they will never help you. Do you think anything good about yourself?"

"Well, yeah."

"Such as?"

"Well…people tell me I have pretty eyes.

"What color are they?"

"You know, I’m not sure!" she began to laugh a little. "They’re kind of green, but sometimes they look bright blue."

"See, your eyes change color. That’s cool! What else?"

"Well, people seem to like to be around me."

"I thought you said they were distant."

"They seem that way sometimes. I don’t know. Maybe it’s me."

"Do you like being around those people?"

"Yeah, but…" Her voice seemed restrained, and she changed the subject. "Um, what did you like about the Aura that you knew?"

"You know, I really didn’t know much about her."

"Really? I thought you loved her."

"I don’t know. I guess it wasn’t really love, but it felt like it. By some stroke of luck toward the end of my freshman year, I ended up sitting next to her at lunch. It was totally unintentional, mind you. My friends and I sat at one end of the table, and she and her friends at the other. She and I sat near the middle, where the two groups met."

"Did you ever talk to her?"

"Oh, no. I was far too shy. She was a senior, pretty, and with her friends. I often wondered if she even realized I was there. I didn’t really care though. It was good just to be around her." After a short pause, I continued, "I often wondered if I was even a speck in the sea of people she might’ve thought about before she died. I’m sure she never gave me a thought, but I still think about her…everyday."

"I wonder if anyone would think of me that way."

"I can guarantee that a lot of people would. You can never know what kind of effect your life has had on others."

The conversation went on for some time. We talked of how our lives had progressed. We shared our memorable experiences, as well as ones we would rather forget. We eventually came to the conclusion that we never really know how our lives can change.

I then asked her for the biggest and most important favor that I’ve ever asked of anyone. "Aura, I want you to promise me that tonight will not be it. I want you to live just one more day. Can you promise me that?"

"Yeah, I suppose."

"Don’t suppose," I said soberly. "Promise."

After a brief pause, she clearly and confidently uttered, "I promise."

I assumed that she hung up when I heard the click. Afterward, I might have thought of other things to say. I might have hoped that I said enough to convince her to keep living. Fortunately, I never got the chance to worry.

As I pressed the button to hang up the phone, I heard my roommate’s bedroom door creak open. It was a rather abrupt sound that seemed to accompany the beep from the phone. I was glad that he was awake, as I wanted to talk to someone about the strange call. Soft footsteps slowly approached from the hallway and rounded the corner.

The person who appeared before me was not my roommate. The features of this woman looked vaguely familiar, like a face in an old high school yearbook that was collecting dust on a shelf. Suddenly, my life as it was began to feel like a dream from which I had suddenly awakened.

Aura indeed lived through that cold Wednesday night, and the next day she talked to that sheepish boy who sat next to her at lunch. He would eventually lead her in the direction of finding help for her emotional ailments. Soon, the next day turned into the next week, and she was again tempted to tie the rope to the ceiling. However, the voice of the stranger kept telling her, "Promise me, just one more day."

She looked forward to seeing that boy at lunch every day up to her graduation, and she stayed in touch with him long afterward. In college, they began to develop a more serious relationship, and after several years, they got married. On this particular night, Aura Bell finally met the man who saved her life all those years ago.

Indeed, we never really know how our lives can change.