PEARL

TWENTY-THREE

TRACK 23
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thank you for 5k gang
tw: self-harm, transphobia, deadnaming

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ROWAN pressed his exhausted eyes shut and pressed his forehead against the moon-mirroring wall, hoping that its coldness would calm him down in a last ditch attempt to save some of his index nail.

It didn't, so he took a deep breath that teetered like a tight-rope walker in his throat (whose grape grove kisses were fading faster than Friday night) and tightened his grip on the small shred of faintly charcoal-smeared paper from Nicole's stolen stash in his right hand until its torn edges threatened to make his palm bleed and its black-penned numbers threatened to imprint on his skin indefinitely.

Rowan had been clinging to said shred of paper (a pile of which Nicole had pinched from the receptionist's desk a while ago, for the initial purpose of sleep-replacing sketching) ever since Micah had brought it back from her room glowing gold against the Saturday morning grey, and had scrawled down his phone number with the pen Ryan had brought for Nate and held it out for Rowan to take with a sad smile.

He'd been clinging to it tighter ever since he'd heard the scream – the God-awful scream that had deprived him of even more hours of sleep and was haunting his ears as if they were headstones. Micah not being in his bed had helped that scream keep him up until dawn.

Among other things.

By now, it had been a day since his parents' car had shrunk to a dot of rusty ruby on Highgate's dull horizon before window glass and wet eyes, and a day since Rowan had run around the corner into a cluster of pale-faced nurses and caught a horrifying glimpse of a bloodied white nightdress and dripping daisy-yellow hair drooping towards the linoleum as Lily was lifted from the scarlet-stained tiles onto a paramedics' stretcher, her loose limbs seeming to float and making Rowan's very bones shiver.

It had only been a day, but with her still in the hospital and Micah miles away and no chance of sleeping and no stars in the Sunday sky to waste wishes on, it felt like a thousand to Rowan.

He hesitated by the nearest hallway phone, holding his breath instead of either of the Dove-destroyed hands whose rough softness he longed for and running his bitten-to-the-quick thumb over the ebony numbers etched into the paper as if they were braille. He hesitated because he, Nate and Nicole (not Ida – obviously not Ida) had made the collective decision earlier that day to not tell Micah about what had happened to Lily until Monday at least, so that he had the weekend to settle in back home and see his siblings for the first time in almost half a year.

But Lily's abortion had made everything so much darker and real. So much so that Rowan's need for Micah surpassed his sensitivity, and he was dialling his number.

"Hello?"

The pathetic sob that had started to claw at Rowan's kiss-paling throat at the thought of being met with a voicemail retreated when Micah picked up on the fourth ring, and a small smile took its place. In the short silence that followed, Rowan could hear what sounded like the clinking of washing up and a TV with the volume turned down low, presumably because it was way past his sisters' bedtime. Even so, Rowan could hear one of them giggling over the running water.

It sounded warm on the other end of the crackling line, and had Rowan had a cold-shouldering star to kid himself on, he would've wished that he were in that kitchen with Micah.

"Ro?" he heard him ask, before he could finish making his knuckles go white around the body of the phone and muster an answer. The clinking of plates and giggling died down. "Rowan? Is that you?"