For a microsecond, my brain blanks.
Then everything hits at once.
“No,” I hear myself say. “No, no, no, no, no.”
I drop to my knees by the bed, hands already reaching. One goes straight to his shoulder, shaking. The other hovers over his wrist, too scared to touch.
“Caleb. Caleb, hey. Baby. Wake up. Open your eyes.”
Nothing.
His chest rises and falls. Shallow. Too slow.
He’s breathing.
He’s breathing.
“Okay. Okay.” My voice is high and weird. “You’re here. You’re—fuck.”
The safety plan is screaming in my head now, every line neon.
Call 911.
My hands are shaking so hard I almost drop my phone trying to pull it out. For a second, I fumble between his and mine, almost dialing from the wrong one like that matters.
9-1-1.
The ring barely finishes before a calm voice answers. “Nine-one-one, what’s your emergency?”
“My… my boyfriend,” I say. “He… he took something. Pills. And he cut—his wrist—he… he’s… not?—”
“Okay,” the operator says, steady as a metronome. “I need you to take a breath for me. What is your address?”
I give it, staring at the shallow rise and fall of Caleb’s chest like I can make it keep happening by force of will. My free hand presses against his shoulder, feeling the barely there warmth of his skin, the unnatural limpness. There’s tacky blood where my fingers brush the inside of his forearm.
“What’s his name?” the operator asks.
“Caleb. Caleb Burton. He’s twenty-two. He—” My voice cracks. “He tried to kill himself. I think. There's pills. Ambienor something. And—” I squeeze my eyes shut, then open them again because I can’t not look at him. “And he cut his wrist, but it’s not—there’s not a lot of blood. He’s breathing, but he won’t wake up.”
“Okay, Miguel,” the operator says. He knows my name. I must’ve given it. I don’t remember doing it. “Help is on the way. Stay on the line with me. How long ago do you think he took the pills?”
“I… I don’t know,” I say. My brain scrambles, trying to reconstruct the day. “I’ve… I’ve been gone since nine. I was at work and then therapy—I got home, like, five minutes ago. He wasn’t answering his phone all day.”
“Okay,” he says. “We’re going to assume it was within the last several hours. Is he responding at all? Try calling his name again. Can you try giving him a gentle shake?”
I put the phone on speaker, hands slick, and set it on the bed. Then I grab Caleb’s face between my palms, not gentle at all.
“Caleb. Hey. Hey. Look at me.” My voice is too loud, bouncing off the walls. “Open your eyes. You’re not allowed to do this. Come on.”
His eyelids flutter, just barely. For a second, a sliver of brown shows, unfocused and glassy. His lips move like he’s trying to say something. No sound comes out.
“His lips moved.” I shout, probably don’t need to because the phone is right there.
“Good,” the operator says. “That’s good. He’s semi-responsive. I need you to lay him on his side if he’s not already, in case he vomits. Keep his airway clear.”
“He is,” I say. “He’s… he’s already on his side.”
My hands go to his shoulder and hip anyway, rolling him a little more, making sure his mouth is angled toward the mattress, not flat up. He makes a small sound, more of an exhale than anything, and my heart lurches.
