Paging Dr. Vulcano

Chapter 18

Faith was startled awake from her first restful slumber in several weeks by her phone ringing. She slowly figured out her surroundings and managed to find her phone and look at who it was calling her at 2 in the morning. Who could expect her to answer the phone at this hour on her first night off in what felt like forever? As she grabbed the phone, she couldn't focus her vision enough to see who it was.

"Hello?" She managed through her sleepy-drunk voice.

"Hey Love" She knew right then who it was, but why was he calling so early? It had to be at least 4am where he was.

"Hi Babe, what's wrong?" Faith asked her fiancè.

"I'm sorry that I woke you, I forgot you were actually sleeping and not on call tonight." Sal said. Clearly something wasn't right and Faith couldn't quite figure it out yet. She could hear the tone in his voice too which didn't put her at ease in the least.

"It's fine, honey, but now that you have me awake, I want to know what's wrong." She said sincerely, her voice laced with concern. Faith could hear the silence on the other end of the phone. She heard the faint remnants of panicked breathing and desperation in his composure even over the phone. She didn't want to push him into answering, because that was a disaster the last time she tried that tactic. She knew something was very wrong because Sal wasn't like this. He already had enough anxiety when he got on stage, but that only got worse if he wasn't well rested. That meant he prioritized sleeping over pretty much anything else when he was on tour. He had even canceled their nightly facetimes on a few occasions, despite wanting to see her, just so he would be well rested. He also had been known to be stubborn by "I'm working on it myself" when anyone near him could see that it wasn't working. This wasn't the thing for him to try and be macho about. He needed to let her in and he knew it.

"Sal, what's going on? You're scaring me." She hated when he had these episodes that cripled him, but what was worse was the fact he was having one without her there to calm him down. After he got out of the hospital, they worked with a therapist to get some tactics to help him out of the episodes... one of which was having Faith there to calm him down. Finally, he said something

"Sorry Love, I shouldn't have woken you up for this."

"Sal, you need to let that go. I'm fine. I would rather have you call me anytime and anywhere than not call me at all and deal with it on your own."

"I don't want to push my issues onto you, you've already got enough on your plate. You don't deserve a needy fiancè." He practically whispered through his sobs.

This broke Faith in half. She didn't care about sleep when the love of her life was struggling, she just wished she could be there with him. She wanted to be able to be the safe place for him to lean on when he needed help.

"Love, you've got to let me in. I'm the love of your life, and I want nothing more than to share our lives with each other. I want to be there for the good and the bad, the ups and the downs. This is just one of the down moments that will make us both stronger and you know if I could, I'd fly out to meet you as fast as I could. For right now you'll have to tell me over the phone."

"I don't even know how to..." Sal sighed as she waited for him to continue. "You know how much I love what I do, but sometimes I feel like I can't do it anymore. I miss my normal day to day life before I was famous. I just want to be home. I miss my bed, I miss my friends and family..." he paused, and when he did, she could hear the sobs starting again  "I really freaking miss you Love. Like I can't keep doing this. I just can't do this long distance anymore."

Faith could feel her own eyes threatening to spill as she responded through sniffles.

"I miss you too Sal, more than you'll ever know. It's just a phase babe, I promise. In just a little while I'll be there in New York, and then we're going to get married and do this thing together. I know it's hard, but just hold on a little bit longer."