Who Am I Supposed to Call

Nia Carter’s phone was full of names.

That was the problem.

Twenty-one. Black-British, South London. Slim, medium brown skin, natural curls she hadn’t had the energy to twist that morning. Oversized cream jumper, jeans, trainers kicked into the corner of her flat like they’d given up on the day too. Small gold hoops. The necklace she always wore, cold against her collarbone because she hadn’t moved enough to warm it.

She was on the kitchen floor with her back against the cupboard, a half-drunk glass of water beside her, and a headache that had turned the strip light into something personal. Not dramatic. Not an ambulance. Just one of those days where your body decides the schedule without asking you.

Her phone lit up on the counter above her head.

Nia can you ask your cousin about Saturday Nia quick favour Nia you still good to pick up the cake?

She didn’t reach for it.

For once, she couldn’t.

The estate outside her window was doing its ordinary Saturday afternoon — a bus braking too hard on the parade, somebody’s music from a balcony two blocks over, a kid shouting wait up like the whole street owed them a second chance. Normal life. The kind Nia usually organised other people through.

She stared at her contacts instead.

Scroll. Pause. Scroll.

Mum — she would worry and drive over and then Nia would spend the visit pretending she was fine so Mum could leave less stressed than she arrived. That was love, in a way. It was also work.

Shanice — Nia had held her through three breakups and a job she hated. Shanice would come. Shanice would also need Nia to manage the coming.

The birthday group chat — seventeen people who assumed Nia was the glue. She had only just learned how to send a message without three sorries. She was not putting I’m on the floor and I feel small into that chat. Not today.

Thumb hovering. Names that meant I help you. Names that meant you call me when the playlist needs sorting. Names that meant you’re everybody’s person.

And nowhere, not once, a name that meant I know how to be held by you.

That landed harder than the headache.

She almost typed into the group anyway. Old muscle. Soften it. Joke it. lol ignore me I’m being dramatic. Delete. Open notes. Write: Sorry I know this is random but… Delete. The Typing habit, still alive in her thumbs even when her body had stopped performing.

She opened Alyah’s chat.

Three words. No sorry. No escape hatch. No offer to bring soup later to make up for asking.

Can you come.

She sent it before she could turn it into a yes with extra steps.

The reply came in under a minute.

On my way. Don’t move.

Nia laughed once, wet and quiet, because don’t move was the first instruction all day that asked nothing of her except remaining a person on a floor.

Alyah arrived with a key Nia had forgotten she’d given her months ago just in case, a foil tray that smelled like chicken and rice, and the kind of face that doesn’t rush to fill a room with comfort. Mixed-race British, twenty-five, calm in the doorway like she’d already decided the afternoon belonged to whatever Nia needed and nothing else.

“You alright?” Alyah said.

Nia almost said I’m always alright. The line that lived on this estate like a second language.

She shook her head. “No. I’m… here. That’s all I’ve got.”

Alyah nodded, as if here was a complete sentence. She put the tray on the counter, poured water into a clean glass, sat on the floor opposite Nia without asking if the floor was clean enough for guests. Their knees nearly touched. The strip light stayed ugly. Alyah didn’t fix the light.

They sat.

Outside, the bus sighed again. Inside, Nia’s phone buzzed twice more with other people’s plans. Alyah turned it face-down without comment.

“I scrolled my whole phone,” Nia said eventually. “Every name is someone I organise. Someone I soften things for. Someone I’d bring food to.” She pressed her palm to her eyes. “I didn’t know who I was supposed to call when it was me.”

Alyah didn’t rush in with a speech about self-worth. She never does. She looked closer, the way she always does, then left the answer in Nia’s hands.

“You called,” she said. “That’s the practice.”

“It felt like failing.”

“It felt like telling the truth,” Alyah said. “Failing is quieter. Failing is performing fine until nobody’s left who knows the real version.”

Nia let that sit. The headache didn’t vanish. The day didn’t turn cinematic. Alyah heated the food, put a plate in Nia’s hands, and ate her own portion on the floor like this was a normal way to spend a Saturday. No performance of rescue. Just presence with rice.

When Nia could talk again, she said, “I thought being kind meant never being the one who needs.”

Alyah’s mouth tipped. “Being kind without a place to land is just unpaid labour with a soft voice.”

Nia almost cried at that, then didn’t, then did a little, and Alyah didn’t narrate it for her. She passed kitchen roll. She waited.