unknown number (rewrite)

the beginning

  Silence shrouds the man's figure as he lays on his bed in the dark. His chest heaves. This is becoming too much for him; the job, the appointments with the psychiatrist, the pills he's forced to take... the loneliness. He's a monster. Because of him, an innocent life had been sniffed out. He lost the only person who ever truly loved him. He feels completely broken.
  Exactly how long has it been since he's slept? He doesn't even know. Every time he closes his eyes, he replays the events of the last day he truly lived. One minute, he's driving the car, the next... there's blood everywhere, the metallic scent almost making him get up and vomit. And then he notices the body. He clenches his fists.
  Why can't he just sleep? What did he do so wrong that the world is out to get him? It's... his cursed bloodline. It's so easy to blame someone else, something else for the pain. He's killed two people. He's a serial killer. He doesn't deserve to breathe.
  A noise cuts through the silence like a knife through butter, it's the default ringtone. He had a special ringtone for all of the important people in his life, but the fact that he just really needed someone to talk to, someone to listen to the mess inside his head, made him forget that he wouldn't know the person on the other end of the phone.
  So without another thought, he answered it and put the device to his ear, his voice cracking as he speaks, "Hello? ...Who is this?"
  "Uh... oh... um, I'm (Y/n)... I'm looking for my friend... but... wrong number?" he wasn't expecting the voice that floated through the receiver to sound feminine. Much less, there was something else in the voice. Sympathy? Sadness? ...Guilt...? "A-Are you okay? You... don't sound... well."
  He stays quiet, letting her voice resonate in his mind before he sits up and brings his legs to his chest. His eyes stare out the window, cars pass by, their headlights shining through this curtains, so he decides to count them.
  "I'm not," he says, sighing out a breath on his lungs before he realizes what he said. "I mean, I am. I mean... I don't know."
  He's actually surprised that she hasn't hung up on him, there's no need to be helpful. He's just a stranger. One in the six billion of people on this planet. They're simply connected by a thine line, one that she could easily disconnect if she so desired. Humans are selfish, they don't get involved in other people's problems unless it involved them.
  Yes. That's right. She probably doesn't even care that I'm over here, who knows how far away from her, in pain. No one cares. They don't think about the consequences of their actions. Not even me.
  Not even his family. The reason he can't ever get a break. The reason for his cursed blood... his father. He's the cause for all of it. Why couldn't he have just been a normal person? Why couldn't he have just been like everyone else? Why did he get to be special and leave his son to deal with the effects he had on the world? Why... did he leave him alone...?
  His fingernails dig into his forearm while he still pressing the phone to his ear. Why is here still here? What did he ever do? Why do people lump him in with what his father did? Why do people always expect something out of him? They either expect too much out of him, or something that isn't him at all. But one thing they have in common, they all expect him to be like his father.
  He leans further into his knees, his fingernails digging deeper into his skin, drawing blood. But he's worse than his father. He's a killer. A murderer. He killed his mother after she gave him the most important thing; life. But not only has he killed the one person he needed most, but the one person who loved him regardless of what everyone else said. His-
  "Hey. I don't know what's going on, but... it's okay," he can pick up the sound of movement, she's restituting herself on whatever she's sitting on. "I don't know you. This is a no judgement zone. You won't ever have to worry about any of this getting out, I doubt we'll ever meet each other in real life... well this is real... but you get my point."
  Something about the way she said it, made him feel like he could trust her, "Alright. Well... where should I start...?"
  Silence fills the receiver before he can hear her take a deep breath, "Where it began, I guess."
  "Okay... so I guess... it started when I was born," he swallows the lump forming in his throat. But no matter how many times he repeated the motion, it was still there, so he continued, "I'm sure you've heard of my father... Roger D Gol...?"
  He was expecting to hear back a remark of exclamation, or even the dial tone to sound from the sudden disconnection, but instead, her voice comes back soft and calm, "Actually, no. I've lived under a rock my whole life... don't watch a lot of news... never paid much attention to gossip... those kinds of things... but why bring him up? Do you hate him?"
  "I despise that man. He ruined my life," he turns his phone on speaker, throwing down onto the bed before wiping his nose. "Everyone always lumps me on with that... man. I'm expected to be like him. In all the various ways people view him as. It's like I'm not my own person... I bet... if you knew the name, you'd act the same way..."
  "I doubt that I'd judge you because of your ancestry," her voice comes out softer, almost like she's afraid of someone overhearing her. "But if it makes you feel any better... in anyway... I won't ever look him up. If you know that there's at least one person in the world... who knows nothing about him... and you won't have to worry about comparing you to him... then you'd feel better."
  He nods, but then remembers that she can't see him, "Yeah... thanks."
  Silence again follows, but he's sure it's not because she doesn't want to say anything. But what is it then? "Of course. But feel free to continue."
  "Well, because of this... I've had to deal with... so many different people... saying so many different things... and having so many different hidden intentions," he buries his head into his knees, making sure that from now on, he speaks louder so she can still hear. "There's many too many people who've told me that I shouldn't be alive. That me being born into this world was a mistake and that my father was the scum of the earth. But if that's true... what am I? I'll always just be the shadow of the scum of the earth."
  "I just don't know anymore what the purpose of going on is. I try so hard to push through, to be better than these feelings. To smile through all the first and the dust. Take in the view that so many people talk about even through all the fog, but what's the point?!" he feels the tears run down his face, no one has ever seen him like this. So broken down and beaten up, and he wanted to it to stay that way. "I can't do anything on my own anymore. I'm constantly relying on others to help me make up for my mistakes. I don't know what I'm doing wrong anymore. Just tell me the flaw everyone else sees and I'll fix it!"
  "I just feel so worthless, like I'm a sorry excuse for a human being," he lets out a jagged breath, before taking in another one just as ragged as the one that left his lungs. "I wasn't meant to live... I was just put on this world... to take up space as an empty shell."
  There's still silence, something he's not sure he's comfortable with. There's something about laying all of your heart on the table and only being greeted with silence that's unnerving. He just told her things that he's never told anyone; not Luffy, Sabo, Marco, or even Pops, "You know what... just for-"
  "Living is hard," he hears air around the phone as she falls back fast onto something. "Staying alive is rough in itself, but when you add that you don't love yourself onto that... it's impossible. Breathing is a labor and it takes everything you have to not give up. To just, stop letting your lungs pump air through your body."
  "But let me tell you something my family told me... when you become something that the people who hurt you can't, when you rise above all the petty shit they say, when you can do something no one else can, when you prove every last one of them wrong," he swallows at the lump in his throat again, eager to hear what comes next. "It makes you feel good, but no one will accept it. They'll only start to throw accusations at you, make you feel like you don't deserve the recognition that you worked so hard to get. But they don't matter. Everything that does, is in you."
  "Only you have power over you. If you're happy with the way you are, then you don't need to become something different. And if you're not, change," she lets out a sigh, it's soft and gives him the feeling she's needed to repeat this to herself on multiple occasions. "You can't change where you come from though, sadly. But if they make a decision about you, based on where you came from... fuck them. They don't deserve the time of day from someone like you. They haven't gone through anything you have, so they have no room to judge you based on what little information they have."
  "Before you can love someone, you need to learn to love yourself. Remember that," she lets out another soft sigh, this one gives him the impression that she still needs to work on that last topic. "As for everything else, just know, you're not doing anything wrong. No one is meant to survive in the world on their own. Not many people like to admit it, but humans are pack animals. We seek people who will help us and accept us regardless of what we did or didn't do. You deserved to be born. Everyone. There's not one of us that didn't."
  A small smile creeps onto his face, "Thanks... but I... that's not all..."
  He waits until she hums before he licks his lips, "A... several months ago... I killed someone... it was in a car accident. I was driving... and the breaks... something happened to the breaks... and I drove off a cliff. The love of my life was in that car... but I... was the one to live. I feel... unworthy. Like... why did I survive when it was my fault?"
  "Sometimes... fate has something in store for us, and we just don't know it yet," he hears a door slam in the distance and she suddenly sits up. "I've got to go. I'm sorry for calling you so late in the night. I hope I was helpful. And remember, you're never alone."
  He hears the dial tone before he can even say goodbye. His hand grabs the device and ends the call before he falls back into the bed. His body slightly bounces off of the mattress a few times before it settles down. He feels so much more relieved than he deserves. Hearing all of that from a stranger, one he'll never see in person, shouldn't make him feel this good.
  His eyes stare at the phone screen, the light slightly burning his eyes. He pulls up his call history and looks at the most recent number on the list. Unknown number 11:45 PM

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