Hello Operator?

It seemed that I had just fallen asleep when I heard glass shatter. It jolted me awake. The hair on the back of my neck stood on end. Dad wasn't supposed to be home tonight.

"Dana!" It wasn't my father's voice calling to me like that. "Dana!"

Another rock flew through my window taking a shard of glass with it.

"Dana!" His voice was dripping in desperation. It sent a chill through my entire being. I couldn't even think to be angry about the broken window. I hurried out of bed and tiptoed around the broken glass.

"Theo?! What the hell are y-" The question hung in the night air, unfinished as he came into view. He had blood on him, it dripped down from a gash in his forehead, a cut on his cheek, it stained what I could see of his clothes in the moonlight. He was holding a bat, his face was swelling, and the possibilities were racing through my mind.

"I'm sorry. I didn't know what to do. I-"

"What happened?!"

"Call the cops... Please," he begged with a hoarse voice.

The operator finished with Theo, probably telling him help arrived. I could still hear his hoarse voice saying his mother had been stabbed. I didn’t know this woman. I hadn’t met her yet. Even still, my legs wanted to go out from under me. He handed the phone back to me his hand running through his hair before he sat down on the ground. He continued to hold onto the bat.

"I tried to help her. He had a knife. I tried to help her Dana," he repeated over and over.

"It's ok Theo. You did help her, you got to the phone." I tried to comfort him. I knelt beside him. I couldn't feel my toes, and at this point I realized we were still outside.

"I couldn't hit him," he said. His voice was coming in choked, sniveling sobs. "I-I grabbed the bat but I couldn't hit him!"

"Theo we need to go talk to the police," I said. "I have to get some shoes, I'll be right back."

"No! Dana!" he called after me.

I hurried back to my house slipping into my father’s work boots on the porch. Deciding on a dime, I went and made some wet paper towels to clean off the blood from Theo's face. I returned to the boy on the ground. He was staring blankly at the bat in his hands.

"Theo come on," I said and shook his arm. "I brought some paper towels to clean you off."

Theo lifted his chin and let me wipe off most of the blood. It was the face he was giving me, the pathetic look on it. I had seen it before, that first time we got drunk. When he handed me that book of fables and trusted me with it. The traces of an intensity I couldn't name were painted on his features and his eyes gave away how he felt under this war paint. It was still as haunting as it was the first time. I will never forget this look.

The gash on his forehead still bled as I continued to wipe it, the one on his cheek wasn't as big and had begun to stop.

"Come on." I offered him my hand to help him up.

He shook his head and wiped his nose on his sleeve. "I'm not going to talk to them."

"Theo, you have to go tell the police!"

"Tell them what?!" he shouted. "That I was useless?! That I-I ran out?! I couldn't even help her!"

"Theo, you have to tell them what you saw. You were not useless," I told him firmly, "you got help."

He shook his head. "I'm not talking to them. They don't need me."

"You're the one who called them!"

"They can talk to my mom. Please Dana. I don't feel like going to a police station for the next four hours."

That bloody gash stared me straight in the face. What was I supposed to do? Force him? "Well what are you going to do if you're not going to talk to them?"

He took a moment to reply, and approached his question hesitantly. "Can I stay with you?"

"... Yeah, come on," I whispered and offered him a hand. He was still covered in blood and his shirt was torn in a few places. His only white t-shirt. "You need to get out of those clothes. You can borrow my dad's things."

He nodded. "Ok."

He followed behind me into my house.

"Just stay quiet, my mom should be asleep," I warned him.

"I didn't wake her up?" He asked.

"I handled it." By handled I meant I told her to go back to bed, I'd fix it. My mother was too out of it to do much more than listen.

I made Theo stand in my living room while I got some clothes for him. I found a suitable enough t-shirt, one that didn't reek of alcohol and cheap avon perfume, and some old pair of sweatpants that I had never seen my dad wear.

"Here, bathroom's down the hall, last door," I told him and shoved the clothes into his arms.

While he dressed I found a dust pan in the hall closet to pick up the glass from my shattered window. I had no idea how I was going to fix that. I paused. There I was worrying about my damn window, Theo’s house had just been broken into, his mother had just been stabbed. The sirens were still blaring for crying out loud.

He came shuffling down the hall and I looked him over once again. His face was swelling something awful and he had big gash on his forehead. It was still ruby red in its fresh glory. There was a stirring feeling in my stomach, familiar and sickening. It was helplessness and I hated it. There were things that I could have done, things I could have been doing, and the feeling that what I was doing wasn’t enough. I reached for his hand and offered the little comfort I could. His cold fingers joined mine, holding tight as I led him through my house.