911

'You are my 911.' She has always said.

When she calls like that- distressed, sniffling, something in my heart always breaks. I get the stench of rum even from over the phone, somehow. I can imagine her cheeks stained with tears. I can hear vehicles swooshing past her; fear grips me.
'Will you walk carefully?' I shout.
'I am fine.' She reassures, in an unconvincingly slurred voice.

She makes a little sense, whatever she says. Her words come indistinct and incoherent.
'Will you tell me everything properly?' I ask her.

At moments like these, I get reminded of an old her and I suspect she remembers it too, because she keeps saying how she is stronger, more practical and callous now, more to herself than to me.

'You are still your old self, you know...' I tell her quietly.
She does not argue.
'You haven't changed. Not even a bit. And it hurts you because you claim you have.'

'What do I do?' She asks helplessly.
I get a pang of pain when she asks like that. How many times I have asked her the same question, knowing she would always know the right thing to do.

She understands and gives a tearful chuckle.
'Role reversal! I wish I were as right as you think I am.'

Right or wrong, I have lost count how many times we have got each other out of the abyss of emptiness. She is my 911 too.