Forty-one million, five-hundred and twenty-two thousand, four-hundred. That’s how many minutes the average human being lives. Well, that’s how long they spend being alive. The time they actually spend living---the time that any of us spend truly experiencing the world around us---is much less. The combined moments, instants, memories that truly make up the defining part of our lives is probably less than thirty. Thirty minutes is all that truly defines the 41,522,400 minutes we spend on this earth.

Mine, though, was defined by about five. Five minutes that shaped who I am. Five minutes that determined my path; ended one, and opened another. Five minutes that I’ll never forget.

Where is she? Is she really coming? Does she even care? The thoughts were spinning through my head one after another, unceasing. I reached over and checked my phone again, for the tenth time that minute, to again check to see that “on my way” text from her; the only reassurance I had that she was still coming, that I wasn’t as alone as I feel right now. The only thing I sent her was “I need you.” Not a why, not a where, but that didn’t stop her. In less than a minute her text came back to me, not questioning what I needed, not questioning where I was: she already knew that---anytime I sent her a text like this, it was from the same spot. We’d come here a few times when we were younger. It was an abandoned fire tower out in the woods, off the beaten path. The tower lay at the top of the biggest hill around, and with the tower being 100 feet above that, the view that it afforded from  the top was unrivaled. A ladder ran all the way to the top, it was a bit rickety, but I didn’t mind. I went there alot to calm down and be alone. But sometimes it wasn’t enough, so I’d call her to help. She never questioned, she just came to help. It’s always been that way; her having my back through it all.

And this was one of those times when the tower alone wasn’t enough. It was almost sunset; the sun blazed gloriously, the pale pink clouds drifting through the sky, scattering the light across the nearby lake to create a perfect reflection of the sky above. But I didn’t see it, any of it. I cycled sobbing, fits of anger, back again. I couldn’t think, much less notice how gorgeous the scene before me was. And so I texted her. It was all too much for me to bear; just when I thought my life had some sense, it all fell apart.

The previous few years had been far from pretty. My parents, well, step-parents---I never knew my real father---divorced. And then times were hard, really hard. I was too young to work, and my mom bounced jobs bi-weekly. We had to move to a new neighborhood, far from ideal. I stayed home from school often to watch my sister. My mom would leave me with whatever change she had to go to the gas station for snacks, and remind me where the 9mm was. I remember the first time I held it; it felt so heavy in my shaking, adolescent hands. I only had to use it once. I missed, but the effect was the same regardless.

But last year, my second year of high school, my mom got a new job. She quit the drugs. We got a decent suburban house. My sister was making friends at her new school. We were almost a normal family. Then, when my sister  and I were at school, a burglar hit our house. My mom was home, she tried to defend our things. She tried to beg and plead, fight for everything she had came so far to earn back. He didn’t even hesitate. Two to the chest, one to the neck. We had to do a closed casket.

And now I’m bouncing foster homes, one after another; this one abusive, that one neglectful. And the good ones, I’m not good enough for. My sister is young, she got into a nice house right away. I wasn’t about to try to keep us together; she didn’t deserve the life I was living. I ran away from my “home” that day, all the way to the tower. And all I could think about was how much I didn’t want to go back.

When she got there that evening, I stood on the tower’s railing, the only thing between her and me being 100 feet of open air. I think I remember her yelling, presumably to get down from the railing, but I wasn’t listening. I wasn’t hearing. I wasn’t seeing. All I could think about was how much I wanted all of it to go away. For life to be simple again. To have my family back. So I didn’t notice as she climbed the ladder up to meet me. I didn’t notice as she gave the first part of her speech. I did notice as she gave a slight yelp as the tower swayed from a gust of wind. She was terrified of heights. She always hated coming up here. So I turned and looked at her, truly noticing her presence for the first time. She said something once, I didn’t hear. I looked at her, tears flowing down my face. She said it again, it still didn’t register. I looked at her, mouth agape, expression apologetic. She said it again, and this time I heard.

“Get down from that railing.”

Simple enough. Logically speaking, it made sense. But I was far from a state of logical thinking. She said it again, not as a command, but as a wish. An honest, genuine plea. But I couldn’t get down.

“I know this is hard. Well, no. I don’t know. I don’t know anything about how hard this must be for you. How impossibly unfair it must all feel. How tempting it must seem.” I looked at her, trying to reason through her words, to find the clarity to truly grasp what she was saying. But in my shattered sensibility, I heard only one part: tempting. She continued. “But there is one thing I do know: and that is that you aren’t alone. No matter how much it feels like it, no matter how many times that voice in your head tells you it. You aren’t. I am here for you, and always will be.” She paused. “And I know something else, and that is that one day, this will all be naught but a rather large stepping stone towards the greatness for which you’re destined. The memories you’ll make. The journeys you’ll take. The people you’ll meet. In two years, this will all be behind you, and the world will be yours. You just have to make it there.”

She took a step towards me, arms open, tears flowing openly now. I looked at her, and did my best to flash some semblance of a smile. After a moment of failing to do so, I managed to move my lips to say two words: “I’m sorry.” I stepped off the ledge.

And into her arms. And we sat there, in each other’s arms, until long after the stars came out. Crying into the other’s shoulder, we didn’t say a word. It wasn’t romantic, not in the boyfriend-girlfriend sense, but it was the moment the defined my life. It was the moment that I knew, truly knew, that I wasn’t alone. And that I wasn’t going to let this damned world keep me down. It was the five minutes that didn’t just define my path, but saved it. Five minutes that gave way to a beautiful thirty-million more.