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It’s ten thirty-nine when your phone lights up. You switched the ringer off two hours ago when Joly was incessantly calling you to ask if he sounded like he had swollen lymph nodes and also where did you say the Starbucks downtown was? but you grab for it automatically anyway.
It’s Jehan.
Are you at home?
You slide to unlock and tap out a quick response.
Yup. You need something?
It’s not long at all before he responds.
I’m outside. Can you come down? I really need to talk to someone.
You’re on your feet and grabbing for a coat instantly. You practically trip down the stairs (not helped by the fact you almost forgot to grab your shoes before leaving the apartment), and quickly find him when you get outside. He’s on a bench across from your building and he’s clearly been crying.
You plop yourself down next to him, casually draping your arm along the bench behind him (which is actually you offering your body for him to curl up against if he wants), and say, “Hey! What wrong?”
He screws up his face at that, nearly starting to cry again, and then he tucks his knees up to his chest (and you rather wish he’d taken you up on your silent offer instead).
He won’t say anything, he’s just buried his face in his knees. But he said he needed to talk, so you try to coax it out of him. You end up with a hand in his hair, stroking it away from his face. You think you probably shouldn’t be doing this, but he seems to respond. His eyes lift up to you. There are actually tears in them now.
“What happened?” you ask softly, worried.
He stammers and gasps his way through it. I don’t know if I can do this. It’s not something you’ve ever, ever heard him say before. If he ever doubts, he learns to believe. If he ever wants to quit, he presses onward. But this semester has been really hard for him, and his family is having problems back home, and he’s been half-involved with someone you don’t know but don’t like the idea of, and he’s here now confessing to you that he is no longer sure of his ability to keep moving forward. And it breaks you to see him like this, teary-wet and frightened.
But he came to you because he needed to talk when he could have talked to anyone. He came to you.
(Through it all, you’re really absurdly glad you were the one he chose to talk to.)
When he’s finished talking, finished spilling his whole heart out to you (and he ends the way he began), you smile at him. It’s a warm smile, an understanding one. You don’t want him to push aside his feelings and muddle through somehow. You want him to thrive.
You start to tell him: how awesome he is, how you truly believe that he can do anything, how he’s going to be fine. He gives you a look like he doesn’t really believe you, like you’re just telling him things because he should hear them. So you steady your hand on the back of his head and pull him closer, leaning in until your forehead his resting against his.
And then you tell him about how you’re here. You say, anything you need and, I’m here for you always. You use the singular because the others are here for him too, but this is personal. He came to you, and you are here for him.
You tell him he can do it, and you tell him you will help.
Finally, he gives you a watery half-smile. You haven’t solved his problems and you can’t, but you can be his friend and you can wipe the tears from his lovely, gentle face, and you can remind him that he’s a lion and not just a kitten. Because he is. And he doesn’t need you, but you’re secretly a little glad that he thinks he does.
And you can pull him into your arms now, and this time he presses his face into your shoulder. You even sneak a quick kiss to his forehead (and he sighs into your shirt).
You haven’t yet figured it out, but you will soon. You don’t know why you feel a little sad that he won’t come in, that he just thanks you and squeezes your hand and walks home.
You don’t know why you don’t want him to leave.