~~ It couldn’t have been earlier then one in the morning when the phone started ringing, and I’d like to say that I knew immediately that something was wrong, that something in me shifted and I knew someone’s life depended on me.  But if I did it would be a lie.  I fumbled in the dark for a second and when my hand hit the snooze button on my alarm clock and nothing happened I grabbed my phone from underneath my pillow and answered the phone; only for the purpose of getting the noise to stop.  I can’t remember if she said hello, I just remember the jumble of words that spilled from the phone didn’t make any sense to my half asleep mind.  “Who is this?”  I mumble. 
 “It’s Mia.”  I could hear the way her breathing fought to stay strong and wondered briefly how her voice was so calm if her breathing sounded so panicked.
 “What’s wrong?”  I open one eye and glanced at the clock, the red glow hurt my eye so I shut it.
 “I’m dying, Charlie.”  Suddenly I’m wide away; I sit up in bed so fast that I’m vaguely dizzy for several seconds. 
 “What’s that supposed to mean?”  I can tell my voice sounds the way it always does, but my whole head is spinning because I have the growing feeling that she doesn’t mean she’s just upset.  
 “It’s supposed to mean that I’m dying.”  I could hear the tears in her voice at first, but then she coughs them down. 
 “Did you call the police?”  I stand up, pacing around in the dark.  My heart in my throat, panicking. 
 “No.”
 “Why not?” 
 “I don’t want them to save me, I want you to.”  I grab a pair of jeans and pull them on with one hand, then my car keys and a sweater that was lying on my floor just like the rest of my wardrobe. 
 “What did you do?”  I say quietly, slipping through the dark house.  I sucked in a sharp breath when one of the floorboards creaked loudly underneath my weight.
 “I, I cut myself.”  I pause for a second wondering if she had overblown the situation. 
 “That doesn’t kill you.”  I say through a sigh.
 “You didn’t let me say where.”  She whispers. 
 “Apply pressure to the wound.”  I say instinctively as I step out the door, closing it quietly behind me, holding a balled up pair of socks and a pair of black high-tops. 
 “I can’t.” 
 “Well you’re going to have to try.”  I hear her stifle a painful moan and know that she’s trying.  Feeling reassured I whisper, “why not?” 
 “It’s both.”
 “You need to call an ambulance.”
 “No, I want you to tell me what to do.  Anyway in the time it would take me to dial and for them to answer I would’ve lost a lot more blood.”  I contemplated if I should just hang up and hope she would call, but I knew that if anything she would just call me back.  Or maybe she wouldn’t, and she would just bleed out on her own.  So I didn’t hang up, I just hope I would have enough time to get there.  
 “Where are your parents?” 
 “Away, I forget where.”  I asked for an address and she told me the name of a school I knew, then one road down, two lefts.  The first house on the street.  I drove the speed limit almost all the way down my road before I started to speed; I was making a huge gamble.  And I was betting on Mia’s life. 
 From the other side of the phone a soft whimper escapes her lips and she whispers, “Charlie, save me.  I’m scared.  I don’t want to die, Charlie.” 
 “Apply pressure to the wound.” 
 “I am.” 
 “Try to slow your heart rate down.”  That would slow the blood flow down a little I think, suddenly my thoughts were clouded; I saved people all the time.  People almost died and I saved them all the time, it’s what lifeguards do.  What was so different about this?  Simple, in the water there was never any blood.  Drowning was so much easier to fix.  I hear her taking slow deep breaths, and I press my foot down on the gas more, hoping there were no cops out tonight, hoping I didn’t crash, hoping I got there in time.  “Keep your eyes open.”  I say, “Stay awake.”  That was all I could say, I was choking down panic.  I turned down several more roads, and then finally I pulled in front of the house.
 “I’m here.”  I say into the phone, I hardly hear her when she whispers,
 “The back doors unlocked.”  I run around the back of the house and through the backdoor.
 “Mia?”  I hung up, “Mia?”  I could hear it in my voice now, I tried so hard to choke it back down but I couldn’t anymore. 
 “Charlie.”  She says half-heartedly, “Charlie I’m up here.”  She was sitting at the top of the steps holding her wrists tightly, but blood was seeping through her fingers and dripping onto the pristine white carpet.  I fumbled with my phone as I dialed 911,
 “Why would you do that?”  I pulled a bit of gauze out of my sweaters pocket and start wrapping fast and tight.
 “Hello, what is your emergency?” 
 “Anderson Drive 9237.  We need an ambulance immediately; Mia Denials is bleeding profusely from both wrists and requires immediate medical help.” 
 She leaned against me as I finished and cradled her hands in her lap.  “Why?”  I whisper again.
 “An ambulance will be dispatched immediately.”
 “Did I tell you… No of course not, of course I didn’t.  He hurt me Charlie, he hurt me so bad.  He used me,” She tilted her head up to look at me.  “He used me.”  I nod, trying to understand.  “He used to touch me, I told him no.  I told him to stop so many times and he just laughed and said okay but he never stopped.  He always kept doing it, I never thought about it in context Charlie.  He was molesting me, I never thought about it in context.  He used me.  I’m not a slut Charlie; I didn’t want to tell you.”  Her eyes watered.  “I told him to stop.”  She pressed her head lightly into my shoulder.  I bite my tongue to keep my own tears from surfacing. 
 “I know you did.”  I hug her softly, how long would it take to get an ambulance here? 
 “He used to kiss me and hold my head in place and it was so scary, I told him never to do that again or I’d scream rape.  Then a month later he broke up with me.”  I took of my sweatshirt and put in over her, then picked her up and walked out onto the front porch. 
 “I’m sorry.”  It felt almost like there was a snake wrapping itself around my throat.  I could hear the sirens, they were so close.  But were they close enough? 
 “It’s like I’m standing on the edge of a cliff that’s so far from the ground, and I thought you saved me but then he pushed me back to the edge.  He pushed me off the edge this time.  Charlie?”  She murmured, her head dropped softly against my chest. 
 “Yeah?”
 “Will you be my big brother, please?  I promise to be good this time.  I promise to be so good this time Charlie.” 
 “Yeah, I’ll be you’re big brother Mia.”  I moved softly onto the sidewalk, wanting to run but not wanting to jostle her.  Three houses, then two, then one.  It stopped, its sirens were blaring.  She whispered in my ear then,
 “Don’t leave me alone with these strangers Charlie, stay with me.” 
 “I won’t leave.”  She reached out with a pale, shaking hand and touched my cheek softly.  Then sighed softly,
 “Good.” 
 “What?”  I lay her down on the stretch and stepped into the ambulance even though they were slightly bewildered when I said I wasn’t of direct relation. 
 “You really are here.  I thought, I thought…  I know it’s silly, I thought I made you up.  You’re the sort of person I would make up.”  Her eyes flutter then close and I let her hand rest in mine, careful not to let it drop, or hold it too tightly.
 I sat in the emergency room with a pale little freshmen with light brown hair and icy blue eyes that were closed, stitches were sown in each wrist, I didn’t know how many.  They pumped blood into her, I didn’t know how much.  They said she lost a lot; ask how long it had been.  I said I didn’t know.  Her skin looked so white, I let my hand hover just above her slightly opened mouth; if I hadn’t been able to feel the slight warmth of her breath then I would be positive she was dead.  I sat next to her and tried hard not to cry.  I couldn’t cry I wasn’t the type.  I glance at the clock, almost four; school would start in a couple hours.  I didn’t suppose Mia would be going, I didn’t suppose I would either. 
 Five, her pale eyes flutter open, skirting around the room then slowly shifting to the side and resting on me.  She closed her eyes again.  I slump in the chair and wonder if I could get the blood out of my sweatshirt, I kind of doubted it. 
 Six, she shifted slightly then opened her eyes again.  “Charlie?”  She whispers, wincing when she tried to lift her hand.  “Charlie?”  She turned her head slightly to the side, looking at me.  Alive, breathing, not bleeding anymore.  “Charlie?”  She started to sit up,
 “No, lay down.”  I allow myself a small sigh of relief when she closed her eyes again. 
 “Thank you.”  She whispered, opening one eyes she looked at me “you’ll still be my brother wont you?  Not only when I’m dying?” 
 “Of course, now go back to sleep.”