It was almost 4 am when my phone began to dance, buzzing and skittering across the table, desperate for my attention. I had only been asleep for an hour or two, otherwise it would have taken something more extreme to get me up. It still took three long buzzes, followed by a yelp and a crash as the phone fell on my cat, for me to get to my feet and answer. I flipped the phone open and saw the name that I had considered deleting over and over in the three years since graduation. I mashed my thumb at the green button beneath the screen and brought the phone to my ear.

	“Peter,” I said, closing my eyes and lowering myself back onto the bed, “do you know what time it is?”

	There was silence on the other line, and for a moment I thought he had hung up right when I answered. I pulled the phone away to check but it said the call was still active. I only caught the last part of something he said as I put it back to my ear.

	“-for bothering you,” he said. “I’ll let you go back to sleep.”

	I sighed and rubbed my eyes.

	“No, I’m awake now. It’s alright.”

	The line grew silent again, but I didn’t bother to check the phone. He would either say what he had called to say or he would lose his nerve. I wasn’t angry at him, but if he thought I would do small talk that early in the morning, after three years of silence, he didn’t know me as well as either of us had once thought.

	“Hey,” he finally said. “This is going to sound weird.”

	“I’ve yet to have a call after two in the morning that didn’t.”

	He might have laughed, or maybe he coughed. I wasn’t really sure.

	“Ian, I’m dying.”

	“Wow,” I said, wondering if that sounded wrong. “That’s terrible. How long do you have?”

	“I don’t know. I went down the vein, which I heard is the way you’re supposed to do it, but I never really looked up how long it’s supposed to take. I’m starting to get pretty cold, though, so I don’t think it will be much longer.”

	“Oh,” I said, my eyes opening to stare through the darkness at my ceiling.

	“Yeah.”

	Water was sloshing in the background.

	“Aren’t you going to say anything,” he asked. I realized I’d been quiet for a couple of minutes.

	“Do you want me to?”

	“I don’t know. I just want someone to talk to while this happens. I’m not afraid of being dead; I want that. It’s the dying that’s scaring me.”

	“Well, I don’t really know what to say.”

	I sighed.

	“Why me, I guess?”

	There was a long silence, broken by a few faint splashes.

	“You’re the only person I could think of who wouldn’t make me feel bad about this.”

	“Why are you doing it?”

	“Because I don’t want to be alive anymore.”

	It was a perfectly acceptable answer, but it wasn’t something I had ever expected Peter to say.

	“And you’re sure?” I said. “You’re sure this is what you want? It isn’t too late to call an ambulance.”

	“Yeah,” he said softly. I wasn’t sure if he was just calm or if he didn’t have the strength to be any louder. “Yeah, this is what I want.”

	I nodded even though he couldn’t see it.

	“Well I’m here,” I said. “You can talk to me if you’ve got anything to say, but otherwise I’m just going to be here. Is that alright?”

	“Yeah. Thank you,” he whispered, and I was sure he was getting weaker.

	I kept the phone pressed to my ear, listening to the ways his breathing changed. Every now and then there was a splash as he shifted in what I assumed was his tub. Then his breathing got slower and there weren't as many splashes. Then, after a while, I stopped hearing anything. My ear was hot under the phone, so I pulled it away and closed it. I placed it on my nightstand and laid there, staring at the glowing numbers on my clock until I drifted out of consciousness.