I was an awkward teenager with undiagnosed social anxiety and didn't have a lot of friends. In high school a really outgoing girl on my bus route befriended me and we started hanging out pretty regularly for about a year. She had a rough home life and had moved to our town to live with her aunt and uncle because her parents had a drug problem. About a year into our friendship she got the opportunity to move back in with her mom in a town a couple hours away and she took advantage of the fresh start. We were about 15 at this point. We stayed in touch by email a little bit. Then one day she sent me an email that was clearly a cry for help - she said she had been doing ecstasy, drinking a lot, she was scared of the friends she had there and didn't know what she was doing, she really missed me and my family and wished she had a good friend like me to talk to, and begged me to call her on her mom's phone number. I tried calling the number a couple of times - the first time no one answered and I was too nervous to leave a message and the second time a man picked up and I was embarrassed thinking I had the wrong number so I hung up. I emailed her back and gave her my number to have her call me but she never did and we didn't talk again. A few years ago she found me on Facebook through mutual friends (she added me but we've never actually talked) and I found out she spent the last 10 years in and out of jail and rehab for addiction issues (meth and heroine). She also had a baby and the baby was taken away by the state. I always felt really guilty that I didn't do more to try to help her, or tell my parents what was going on so they could try to help in some way. I'm not sure what we could have done but I wish I had tried harder or just been there for her as a friend. Fortunately according to Facebook she has now been clean and sober for a year and a half and is married and working. I hope her life continues to get better and maybe some day I will work up the nerve to actually talk to her.