An Hero Exercise.

Rrring.

Rrrring.

Sarah clutched the phone in her hand and sat up, staring at Joel's picture on the vibrant little screen.

Rrrrrring.

He was wearing a bright pink safety vest and posing with a cardboard cutout of a cop.

Rrrrrrrring.

She didn't want to answer. She didn't feel like she could endure it. But she knew she needed to hear his voice. Without that, nothing would get better.

Rrrrrrrrrring.

Joel's breath quickened and his head throbbed. Each moment became heavier and heavier. With each moment, every somber, static ring on his end of the phone grew longer and louder. He waited. He couldn't let his mind produce thoughts. He just waited.

"Hey..." Sarah's voice was muffled. Had he not known any better, Joel would have assumed the sniffling and the rustling of bedsheets on Sarah's end were just static. As tears broke to the surface of his rich, hazel eyes, he wished he could assume it was static.

"Why weren't you at school today?"

"..You didn't have to call. I'm fine."

"Yeah but, why were you gone?"

"I'm usually gone now. You know that." Sarah faked a light-hearted laugh.

"...Can you just tell me why?"

Sarah broke out in tears again. He could hear her pushing the phone under her pillow and burying her face in the warmth of her crisp red bedsheets. Her cries grew muffled and even more distant. Joel knew a lot about Sarah. He knew more than he had ever wanted to know. He knew she had been lying in her bed and sobbing for most of the day. He knew that Sarah wouldn't have let him ear her cry if she could have helped it. And he also knew that Sarah had probably hurt herself again, and that it was probably getting worse. He let Sarah sob into her pillow for a while. There wasn't anything else for him to do. But he was there.

Sarah gritted her teeth. Stop crying. Please stop crying. She tried desperately to stamp down all of her tears and terrible thoughts. She knew Joel could hear her. She knew he wouldn't hang up, no matter how much it hurt him. She knew that he had probably gone into his room immediately and buried his face into his old orange bedsheets, and she knew that now he was waiting to hear her speak again. She also knew that she wasn't ready to ask for his help, so she stalled. She kept telling herself to be quieter, to stop hurting.

"Did you ask Sam about Precalc?" Sarah produced at last, sniffling and sobbing the whole way through.

"Yeah, he said they'd let me drop it. I just have to have Karlbiner write a thing about it.." Joel knew he was being distant. He didn't want to talk about math classes or school or other friends. Sarah was hurting, and he didn't know how to help. The essence of rosemary and grilled chicken drifted up from the kitchen and found its way into this nostrils. His stomach churned, and he wished he could vomit. He didn't want to go downstairs and live his happy life. He didn't want to eat dinner with his brothers and tell his parents about school. He wanted to stay right where he was, nestled in his worn old sheets, listening to his best friend sobbing and trying to breathe for the rest of eternity.

"You're smart. I should've dropped it. Mr. V was right in not recommending it for me." Sarah successfully averted her attention to math for a while. She remembered screaming into her pillow and throwing her phone to the ground when her esoteric, sweater-vested Trig teacher had calmly denied her request for a Precalculus recommendation. Instead, he recommended she enroll in Jr. Review, a remedial course for only the most dim-minded of North High.

"Dude, Mr. V is not the authority on math abilities. He has no sen-"

"Yeah but, come on, I've failed all three of his tests so far. He must've had a point."

"He couldn't have seen that this would happen. You'll do fine, you're fucking smart."

"Not psychopharmacological engineering smart."

"...Yeah y'are."

Sarah smiled slightly and warm, heavy tears rolled down her cheeks again.

"I overslept. I don't know what happened."

Joel stayed as quiet as possible. He tried not to breathe as he listened to the gentle hum of the static.

Sarah's breathing grew heavier as she restrained herself. She couldn't start sobbing again. She just had to do this.