That night, she called me.

“I wanted to tell you that I love you, and I’m sorry,” she said through tears.

“Are you ok?” I asked.

She apologized again and explained that she just had enough with everything. She felt stuck, abused, used, betrayed, abandoned, isolated, and terrified of what was to come. It had become more than she could handle, and she was done with it.

The first time she threw up, I pulled the phone away from my ear and yanked off my glasses so that I could vigorously rub my eyes. I was trying to think straight while also hoping I could just stop my own tears from flowing. When silence returned, I drew the phone back to my face.

“Are you ok?” I asked her again.

“I’m sorry,” she responded after some sniffles and a vomit-filled burp. “I’m so sorry.”

“Where are you?”

I tried to stay collected. Panicking would not help either of us, but a tremble filled my entire body. My shaking shoulders betrayed my intention to remain cool. But she wouldn’t answer that question. Instead, she explained what I assumed: unsure of things, she popped a bunch of pills in her mouth. Those were followed by more, with a few additional ones sprinkled in for good measure. She wanted to pass out and never wake up again. I wanted to know where she was.

“Is anyone with you?” I begged for a shred of information.

“He is in the other room,” she told me.

Him. Of course. I hated him, and to this day I still blame him for everything. He drove her to all that. And he was going to just sit in the other room while she did this, completely unaware that his actions and cruelty were murderous.

For a moment, I thought I might have to suck it up and call him; plead with him to take her to a hospital. But the more I thought about it, the more I wondered what the point of that might be. She survives the night and then what? She goes home? To him? She’s emotionally tortured a little bit more each day. She feels a little bit more stuck each day. She wants to die a little bit more each day. No. She was doing this for a reason.

“Are you at home? Can I come and get you?” I still tried to figure out where she was or what to do.

“No.”

“No? No you’re not home? Or no I can’t come and get you?”

“No.”

I’m not usually one to complain about silence. Often, it is perfect at night. It’s the musical score for sleep. Yet silence on this night was the most frightening thing that could occur. For several minutes – so full that they felt like hours – there was nothing. I tried to control my breathing so I could maybe hear hers, but I couldn’t.

And then there were all sorts of sounds. The violent puking felt like a volcanic eruption. It was disturbing, horrifying, and relieving all at once. She was still there. She was still with me.

“I love you,” I mumbled.

She couldn’t muster a response, but the sobbing, sniffs, and belches served as proof that she was present and awake.

“I don’t want to lose you,” I pushed. It was not my best moment of the evening. No one can be expected to handle everything perfectly, but regret immediately flooded my mind after that.

“I can’t do this,” she said between coughs.

“Tell me where you are and I’ll come get you.”

“You don’t understand. I can’t do this.”

She was right: I couldn’t understand. I knew this wasn’t about me, but why did she call? Why, when she was so desperate to end her life, did she call me? Did she want forgiveness? Was there some part of her, buried deep within, hopelessly seeking help to be let out and freed? Or was she just looking for one last little piece of love and support before she left?

“I love you,” I repeated. “I…I want you to know that. Whatever happens: I love you.”

For a moment, I don’t know who those words are for. Were they for her comfort or for my own?

“I love you, too,” she managed to answer, voice trembling.

A few more moments of quiet rang out before I noticed the time. 4:14 a.m. In the middle of summer, the night sky was just starting to see the light return. A few birds were up and chirping away like nothing was wrong. My downstairs neighbor was hopping in the shower, getting ready for work. The world was still spinning, even if mine had come to a complete halt.

“I’m sorry,” she whispered, barely audible.

“Don’t be,” I said.

Then, there was a moment of furious action. She let out a yelp a split second before a bunch of commotion could be heard behind her.  All was quickly followed by a loud thud!

After standing for about half an hour, pacing back and forth in my studio apartment, I finally allowed myself a moment to sit. The place had never felt more lonesome before. My mind raced, rocketing from one idea to the next. Call the police, I thought. But I don’t know where she is… That dashed to, call her parents, but was quickly squashed by the fact I didn’t know them. And besides, I had no way to contact them anyway. I never felt so isolated and scared.

There was a brief moment I thought about going to bed, but how does one transition to unconsciousness after a thing like that? How does one do anything after that?

I sat motionless and stared emotionless while the sun rose above the tree line. I could not stop looking at, “Call ended…” with her number still lit up. It was almost as if she couldn’t vanish so long as I didn’t move from that screen. She can’t be gone, I thought. We just had a phone call, like, four seconds ago.

I got up and paced around the room, taking the three strides from the “bedroom” to the “kitchen” to the “living room.” After an hour, I decided to shoot a text.

“Hey,” I began. “Please know I care about you, and I’m sorry. For everything.”

The strange bloop of the text being sent across the ether gave an odd impression of normalcy. One could almost be tricked into thinking nothing was wrong. I even half-expected to hear the ping in response, naively hoping she would reply with a reaffirming text stating she was just sick, but she is fine now and going to bed. Sadly, there was nothing. Nothing but radio silence, at any rate.

There wouldn’t be another ping. Instead, my alarm went off a few hours later. It is hard to know if I fell asleep somehow, but I was jolted. The instant I hit “snooze,” I started to bawl. I noticed that I was still restraining the tidal wave of emotions, and the dam just collapsed. My body followed shortly after.

The next few days occurred, somehow, as if Rome wasn’t being ransacked. My ghost of a person shuffled through the work day and all that entailed – greeting the patrons, acting like I care about butter, pretending like their luxury mattered one bit in this damned world. I was gone, too, on a temporary leave of existence.

Everyone had the same smartphone, and I grew exhausted from jumping at all the pings that plagued the days. None of them were for me. None of them were her. Each one served as a gunshot, kicking off my brain’s race through the events. What could I have done better? Not that night, I mean, but in all the nights before? Could I have done anything to stop that? I’ve always known I can’t save anyone else (and I can barely even save myself), but I still retraced every step I ever took over the past few years, searching for clues and dusting for fingerprints of my failures.

Of course, it wasn’t about me,  so that crusade was as doomed as anything. I might have been simply searching for answers.

Eventually, the days turned into weeks – as they do. Those weeks turned into years – as they somehow do. I learned through random sources that she was not gone. She had managed to recover. He managed to find her and take her to a hospital, but she would never go home to him again after that. She moved on, finding ways to “unstick” herself and find new people and places to connect with, all of which improved her life which allow her to actively enjoy it.

I was not one of those things.

It doesn’t matter, though. She got through, and I heard through the grapevine that she was doing ok these days. She was in a happy relationship and was working towards a career she actually wanted. She had a good group of friends and a very helpful therapist.

Hearing that she is ok now allowed years of this pressure to escape my very soul, all at once. It felt like a person had been on my back, choking me for years, and they had finally gotten off. I got home after I learned what had happened after that night and cried for an hour, completely uncertain of what I could possibly label those feelings. Joy? Sorrow? Melancholy for a time when we were together and everything seemed ok? I instinctively looked at my phone, hoping that some psychic connection would have caused her to remember me and reach out.

Silence. But this time, it was ok. I don’t think I need that ping anymore.