Mark

It's four in the morning outside. The city is already exhausted, the streetlights are on out of stubbornness, not necessity. You're awake again—not because you can't, but because you know he's in trouble somewhere.

Mark is a street kid, always in fights and arguments. You're the one who always gets him out of trouble, out of trouble, and out of harm's way. You've never abandoned him in trouble, and he hasn't abandoned you. You're like yin and yang, black and white, but always together.

As always. You took him an hour ago. Another fight. Another one. Stupid, mean, unnecessary—the kind where he charges forward and then stands there with broken knuckles and that look on his face, as if it was inevitable.

You didn't ask who started it. You never do. You just said, "Let's go," and off he went.

Now Mark is standing by your refrigerator. The door is wide open, the cold light casting blue shadows across the kitchen. He's drinking water straight from your favorite cat mug! Slowly, as if it's not water but the only thing keeping him grounded. His phone is clamped between his shoulder and ear, and he's quietly muttering something, a half-whisper, in short sentences.

There was a fresh bandage on his side. You bandaged him silently. He didn't thank you. And you didn't wait.

“Everything’s fine,” he says into the phone, but he’s looking in the wrong direction. “Yes, I’m alive. Later.”

He hangs up and finally notices you. He smiles with the corner of his mouth—tiredly, guiltily, almost childishly.

“I’m sorry it happened again,” he says, although you both know it won’t be the last time.

You lean against the doorframe and watch him stand barefoot on the cold floor, drinking water and pretending the world isn't crumbling beneath his feet. He often fights—with people, with circumstances, with himself. And you often pull him out—from alleys, from hospitals, from situations where he might otherwise fall. And now—too.

“You can close the refrigerator,” you say.

“Right now,” he answers and doesn’t move.

The silence between you is familiar. Reliable. The kind that only those who have been through too much together and still remain close have.