Unknown Caller

by Lisa Unger

But the people who linger on the edge, looking down, the people who pick up the phone and reach out for help? Most of the time, you can talk them down. They are looking for a way back to the light.

“Have you ever lost anyone?” he asks. “Yes,” I answer truthfully. “Does it ever go away? The pain.” I draw in a deep breath, release it. “It changes. You find ways to live with it. Your life grows around it.”

We broadcast one version of ourselves, cropped and filtered and out there for consumption. But the real person is hidden behind that.”

“I’m no hero,” I say softly, my voice wobbling with nerves. “It was the paramedics who arrived at the scene and the ER staff that saved Zoey’s life. They are the real, everyday heroes whose role in our society is often undervalued. When the worst thing happens, you pick up a phone and this group of strangers comes to save your life. They do it every day, without fail, without question. Without press conferences like this one.”

👏👏👏

One of the weird things about insisting that you’re not a hero: no one ever believes you.

Your life belongs to you, the site claims. You can decide when it ends.

the alternative crowd with tattoos and dyed hair, dressed all in black.

My life is over. The text bubbles came in one after another. I know you’re there. Please answer. But I didn’t answer.

I shed her like dead skin, using my middle name, Charlene, Charlie for short, to move forward in my life after Lanie killed herself exactly the same way I had intended to kill myself.

I saw something in you, she told me later. The knowledge. Of life and all its pain, the decision to stick around and do better. That’s what heroism is, you know? It’s not goodness. It’s not bravery. Not just. It’s the courage to keep fighting, keep trying to be a light in the darkness even when you’ve failed at that already.

It’s hard to explain forgiveness to people in the throes of pain, clinging to the way things are supposed to be, should have been. Forgiveness is not saying that certain deeds are acceptable or forgotten. Forgiveness is an acknowledgment that we are all deeply flawed, and some of us make terrible mistakes or do horrible things. But to cling to rage, hatred, or grief, to rail against what is or has been, is to kill yourself again and again, rob yourself of what life you have left, what good you can still do.

In the back of the room, I see her. Lanie. She’s as bright and as beautiful as she ever was, washed in golden light. My friend. Even though she hurt me, and I abandoned her in her hour of need, and she’s gone now, the silvery, bright love of our childhood friendship never died. It lives. Apart from us. Despite us.