Can I Run Something By You?

What if asking for help didn’t feel like weakness—but like the beginning of healing?

Preface

We don’t always know how to ask for help. Sometimes it feels like admitting failure. Other times, like cracking open a door we’ve held shut for years. This story is about that moment. The quiet shift that happens when someone decides they don’t have to do it all alone anymore.

Elise didn’t use the words “I’m struggling.” She didn’t have to. She asked a question soft enough to slip past her pride, and strong enough to change everything: “Can I run something by you?”

If you’ve ever carried too much for too long; or if you know someone who has; this one’s for you.

Burnt Toast and Broken Timing

Elise Monroe stood in front of the toaster like it had personally betrayed her.

The smoke curling from the slots didn’t just smell like burnt bread. It smelled like failure, stress, and something else she couldn’t name but would probably cry about later if she let herself.

She didn’t.

“Mom! You said you’d look over my essay!” her daughter called from the next room, teenage urgency thudding down the hallway.

“I’m coming,” Elise said, voice tight.

She opened the toaster, rescued the charred remains with a butter knife, and dropped them into the trash like tiny sacrifices to the gods of not-losing-it-before-9AM.

Then she checked her watch. She was already late.

Her phone buzzed. A reminder: Dad’s 9am meds.

“Oh no.”

She hadn’t given them to him yesterday. Had meant to. Had set an alarm, even. But the day had avalanched. Now here she was: burning breakfast, dodging deadlines, and letting her 76-year-old father shuffle around with untreated vertigo.

She closed her eyes and pressed her thumb and forefinger into her eyelids.

This isn’t sustainable. But that thought was immediately followed by the one that always showed up: What choice do I have?

A moment later, she grabbed her keys and yelled, “We’ll finish the essay after school!” No time for reflection. No time for softness. Just keep going.

The Phone Call

It was nearly 10:30 when Elise pulled into the driveway, headlights flicking off just before the garage door closed behind her.

She sat there for a minute, engine off, key still in the ignition. The silence inside the car was thick. Not peaceful. More like the kind that presses in on you from every side. The kind that makes your chest feel too small for your heart.

Her hand hovered over her purse, thinking of her phone.

She hadn’t talked to Tasha in what; four years? Five?

They’d texted once, after her mom’s funeral. Tasha had offered to bring soup. Elise had thanked her and never followed up.

Too much pride. Too much grief. Too much of everything.

She pulled her phone out now, thumb resting on Tasha’s name in her contacts. The photo next to it; an old one from college. Both of them in oversized flannel shirts, holding cups of instant coffee and grinning like idiots.

She almost closed it again.

Don't be dramatic. You're just tired. Just overwhelmed. Just…

Her thumb hit Call before her brain gave permission.

Two rings. Three. She was about to hang up when: “Elise?”

The sound of her name, spoken so gently, almost made her hang up anyway.

“Hey,” Elise said. Her voice cracked like a cheap wine glass. “Sorry it’s late.”

“It’s okay. You all right?”

There was a long pause.

Then Elise said it.

Not I need help. Not I’m drowning. Just: “…Can I run something by you?”

And there it was. The softest ask. But it was everything.

Tasha didn’t ask for details. Didn’t tease. Didn’t punish her for the silence or the years or the awkwardness.

“Of course,” she said. “Want to meet tomorrow?”

Elise felt something unfamiliar flutter in her chest. Maybe relief. Maybe fear. Maybe both.

“Yeah,” she whispered. “Tomorrow would be good.”

Coffee, with Extra Humility

The next morning, Elise showed up ten minutes early.

She wasn’t usually early to anything these days, but something about seeing Tasha again made her feel fourteen and fidgety. She picked the corner booth at the back of the café. The one with the lopsided table that wobbled if you leaned too hard.

She ordered a black coffee, no food. She wasn’t sure if she was hungry or nauseous.

When Tasha walked in, it hit Elise like a smell from childhood: familiar, comforting, a little painful.

Same confident walk. Same curly hair, pulled into that loose bun that always fell apart halfway through the day. Same wide, alert eyes that looked like they could see through excuses before you even finished saying them.

“Hey,” Tasha said as she slid into the seat across from her. “You look…” She trailed off, scanning Elise’s face…”like someone who hasn’t slept since August.”

Elise let out a half-laugh, half-sigh. “That accurate, huh?”

“Ruthlessly.” Tasha smiled gently. “But you’re here. So that’s something.”

Elise stared at her coffee. “I almost didn’t come.”

“I figured.”

Another pause. Elise took a sip. It tasted like bitter and pride.

“I’m not even sure what I need,” she said finally. “It’s just; everything’s heavy. Work. Dad. Lily. The dog ate a sock yesterday and I didn’t even have the bandwidth to care.”

“Did the dog survive the sock?”

“Unfortunately.”

They both laughed, the first real laugh of the morning. It cracked something open.

Tasha leaned in. “So what was it that made you call? After all this time?”

Elise ran her fingertip along the rim of her mug.

“I think I just…hit the edge. Like I was walking with all these bags and I dropped one. Then another. And suddenly I’m standing in the middle of the road with stuff everywhere, trying to pretend I’ve got it all under control.”

Tasha nodded. “And you didn’t want to ask for help.”

Elise looked up. “Still don’t. I hate it.”

“I know.” Tasha’s voice was soft, but steady. “But asking isn’t about weakness, Elise. Sometimes it’s just about letting someone sit on the curb with you while you repack your bags.”

Elise looked at her, startled.

“That’s a therapist metaphor, isn’t it?”

Tasha grinned. “Guilty. But it works.”

Elise blinked hard and looked away, trying not to let her eyes spill. Too early in the morning for a full emotional exorcism.

“I missed this,” she said quietly. “I missed you.”

Tasha didn’t rush the moment. Just let it be.

“I missed you too,” she said. “You don’t have to do it all alone, Elise. Even if you can.”

Elise looked down at her hands, resting on the table like they didn’t know what to do now that she wasn’t holding everything.

Tasha didn’t say anything more.

Just reached over, picked up her cup, and clinked it softly against Elise’s.

“For what it’s worth,” she said, “I’m really glad you called.”

The café buzzed around them. Milk frothers hissing. Silverware clinking. Some toddler in the corner singing the ABCs in the wrong order.

And in that moment, Elise didn’t feel fixed.

But she didn’t feel alone, either.

Which, maybe, was enough.

Practicing Grace

Later that week, Elise was standing in the laundry room, one sock in her hand and about sixteen more somewhere in the house, when her daughter Lily poked her head in.

“Hey Mom? I need your help with something.”

Elise opened her mouth to say Just a minute; her go-to phrase that usually meant never, but stopped.

She took a breath. Let the sock fall into the basket. Turned to face her daughter.

“Okay,” she said. “Let’s look at it together.”

Lily blinked like she wasn’t expecting that, then smiled and disappeared down the hall.

Elise followed.

Later, after dinner, she dropped off groceries at her dad’s place. He was watching a nature documentary, volume too high, pretending he wasn’t waiting for company.

She placed a few things in the fridge, made sure his meds were sorted, and was halfway out the door when he said, without looking up:

“You know… you don’t always have to do it all yourself.”

Elise paused, hand on the doorknob.

“I know,” she said softly.

It wasn’t defensive. It wasn’t sarcastic. It was just true.

Back in her car, she pulled out her phone and took a photo of the chaos from earlier—Lily in the kitchen, pasta boiling over, socks somehow on the countertop, the dog wearing a tiara.

She sent it to Tasha with one line:

“Hit my edge again. You free to be a second set of eyes?”

Three dots appeared. Then Tasha’s reply:

“Always.”

Elise leaned back in her seat, phone resting on her chest.

No grand epiphany. No sweeping music. Just a quiet, steady knowing:

She didn’t have to be rescued. She just had to be real.

And that was enough.

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• 8 real-life ways to reword your ask so it feels confident, not clingy

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Because sometimes the bravest thing you can say isn’t “I’ve got this.”
It’s “Can you walk with me a minute?”