Her phone rang out through the darkness and her thin arm reached out for it in the dark of night. She was barely awake but she still felt herself unconsciously answering the phone.
"Hello?" She asked into the phone, still curled up under her blankets.
"Are you awake?" The too familiar voice choked from miles across town.
"Mmmm." She answered trying to stay calm. No mater what he had done she was still his midnight call for help. She was still the tether that kept him from jumping or falling. She couldn't leave him hanging, the rope might break.
"I'm not doing to hot." He said and she could imagine where he sat in his cluttered dark room.
"What would you like me to do." Her late night voice always calmed him down. She expected it would calm anyone down, her voice was quiet and comfortable to hear.
"I'm bleeding." He said, and she felt her heart hitch and her left hand wraped itself around her right wrist.
"How bad?" She asked.
"Normal bad." He said sniffling.
"What happened?" She asked despite knowing that asking was pointless.
"I happened. I keep happening. I keep fucking up. I cant stop happening." His breathing was shallow, his voice was pleading. "You're better now. Make me better. I need to be better."
"I'm no better, I'm just distracted." She said, her eyes were welling up. Worry tears.
"I can't get distracted. It's always there, I wake up and its always there and they are always there." She could see him in her minds eye sitting at the desk and staring out of the window at the street lamp that lit the ally.
"What?" She asked pointlessly, rolling onto her other side.
"The scars. The people. The world. My room." Everything was seperated and broken by a sob.
"Breathe." She said and she let him continue on for hours as the night waned.
"Breathe." She said and he eventually listened, his berthing steadying out as he spoke and poured his dark broken soul into the phone.
"Breathe." She said as he finished and his breathing quickened again.
"I'm going to go to sleep now." He said eventually, sounding tired.
"Mmmm." She said and he hung up.
She put the phone back down on the table and rolled over again. It wasn't long before she was asleep again. Before she fell she wondered how long it would be before he called again, would she get an entire week like this time or would he fall again tomorrow and need her.
She was his rock but she often wished that he had chosen someone else. Someone with bare arms and good things to tell him to make him happy enough. Someone who wasn't so recently scarred themselves.
