"𝘐 𝘥𝘰𝘯’𝘵 𝘳𝘦𝘮𝘦𝘮𝘣𝘦𝘳 𝘥𝘪𝘢𝘭𝘪𝘯𝘨, 𝘣𝘶𝘵 𝘮𝘺 𝘵𝘩𝘶𝘮𝘣 𝘮𝘶𝘴𝘵 𝘩𝘢𝘷𝘦 𝘬𝘯𝘰𝘸𝘯 𝘸𝘩𝘢𝘵 𝘮𝘺 𝘩𝘦𝘢𝘳𝘵 𝘸𝘢𝘴 𝘵𝘰𝘰 𝘢𝘧𝘳𝘢𝘪𝘥 𝘵𝘰 𝘢𝘥𝘮𝘪𝘵"

The blade rests against his wrist. Cold. Silent. Ready.

Tim isn’t sure why his fingers shake. It should be easy—like slipping into sleep. Like fading into the spaces between seconds where no one notices he’s missing.

But his phone is in his hand. He doesn’t remember picking it up. His thumb hovers over a name, then presses.

It rings once. Twice. A tired voice, soft and familiar, mumbles, “Tim? It’s late…”

Guilt slams into him. He can hear it in his boyfriend’s voice—the exhaustion, the weight of the night still pressing against his skin. Tim shouldn’t have called. He’s selfish. Always selfish.

“Sorry,” he whispers. “Go back to bed.”

A pause. A shift in the air.

“…Tim?” His boyfriend is more awake now.

Tim swallows. He forces himself to sound normal. Or as normal as he can when his body feels like an empty shell, when his stomach is a hollow pit that refuses food, when he shakes from hunger and something worse.

“I didn’t mean to wake you. Just… go back to sleep.”

Silence.

Then, “Where are you?”

Tim’s throat closes.

There’s something in his boyfriend’s voice. A knowing. A quiet kind of fear. Tim should hang up. He should lie. But instead, he presses the phone closer, as if that will make the warmth on the other end of the line real.

“I’m fine,” he lies, and it’s almost convincing. “I just—” His breath stutters. “I just wanted to hear your voice.”

A shaky exhale. His boyfriend is still tired. But now he’s worried too.

“Tim… what’s wrong?”

Tim closes his eyes.

Everything. Nothing.

But his hand moves. The blade clatters to the floor.