You text her at eleven forty seven.
Can you please come and get me.
No context. No explanation. Just that.
She replies in under a minute.
Where are you.
She finds you outside, sitting on the kerb two streets from the party you should not have gone to alone tonight, and she doesn't say anything about the state of you. She just crouches down in front of you and looks at your face with those steady eyes.
"Hey," she says. "Just look at me. Breathe."
You breathe.
"Good," she says.
In the car she reaches over at a red light and touches your hand.
"You're burning up," she says.
"I'm fine."
"Stop telling me you're okay," she says. Quiet. Firm. Not unkind.
You stop telling her you're okay.
Back at hers she sits beside you on the bathroom floor while you come back to yourself slowly, her shoulder against yours, not pushing for anything.
"Why didn't you tell me it was getting bad again?" she says eventually.
"Because nobody cares—" you start.
"Don't," she says. Very flat. "Don't finish that."
You don't finish it.
"Because I care about you," she says. Simply. Like it's the most obvious thing she's ever said. "That's not nothing. You're not allowed to make it nothing."
Later she checks your hands for something she thought she saw earlier.
"Hey," she says softly. "Don't do that. You'll hurt yourself."
"I wasn't—"
"I know," she says. "I just need you to know I noticed."
You look at her.
"Okay," you say quietly.
"Okay," she says back.
You fall asleep on her sofa.
She's still there when you wake up, sketchbook in her lap, the lamp on low. She looks up immediately.
"I heard you," she says. "Nightmares again?"
You nod.
She puts the sketchbook down and holds her hand out across the cushion between you.
"Hold my hand," she says. "You're going to be fine."
You take it.
Outside the night does its thing. In here it's just this. Just her hand and the lamp and the particular safety of being somewhere that knows you.
"Please don't leave me alone tonight," you say quietly.
She looks at you.
"Obviously not," she says.