{trigger warning}

His most recent texts send pain tearing into her heart. She wishes she was there beside him, wrapping him in her arms and telling him everything will eventually be okay. She wonders if the way he feels is somehow her fault. If she takes the blame for everything that goes wrong, for every negative feeling, maybe he'll realize it's not his fault. It's not right, she knows, but that's how she feels when someone thinks the world is ending all around them.

That's how she feels now.

I'm not ok.

I'm tired of nothing getting better.

I'm so tired.

Why am I still here?

She's had this conversation with him before, multiple times. For a while, or maybe a few hours, he acts like everything is normal and happy and fine, and she's happy too because he's happy. Then, without warning, he'll say his heart hurts. He'll say nothing is going right in his world. He'll say he wishes he could just stop existing. And she'll tell him it's okay, most people feel like that sometimes, she understands.

But not this time.

She looks up at the walls of her bedroom. Line after line of poetry covers every inch of the white wallpaper, reminders to keep going, to live, to thrive. The truth is, she's just as tired as he is. As much as she wants to pretend everything is fine, it's not. She's tired - of unmet expectations, of broken dreams, of grief...of his sadness. Why can't he just be okay? Why can't she ever seem to fix him? Why can't she make him happy? Why can't...can't...can't...

Nothing she does is ever good enough. Her help isn't what he needs right now. Hard as she tries, she can't save him from his own mind. Trying in vain to fix him only causes her pain in addition to his own. She'd tear herself apart trying to keep him alive.

I'm so tired, he texts again.

Usually, when he's feeling sad like this, she'll try to comfort him, and when that doesn't help, she tells him she's going to give him some space. Usually, he tells her no, it's okay, you don't have to go, I want you here.

She sends him a text: I'll let you be.

And this time, he doesn't ask her to stay. He doesn't say anything at all.

She sets her phone on the nightstand, then reaches for a Sharpie from the jar on her desk and pulls her sleeve up just enough to reveal her wrist. She presses the tip down and lets its cold ink glide across her skin. Rage, rage, she writes, against the dying of the light. The ink smudges between the last two words of the poem. Imperfect, but existing nonetheless. Like her. Like him.

He'll be okay, she thinks. She hopes. Will he be okay tomorrow? Will she? This time she's not so sure. All she can do is hope.