Chapter 26 Miguel #2
“Trying to catch up to…?” he prompts.
“To the damage,” I say. “To keep pace with it. Patch it. He’s got a brain that wants to kill him. I’m trying to outrun it.”
Luis doesn’t flinch. “That sounds exhausting,” he says quietly.
I let out a short, humorless laugh. “Yeah. You could say that.”
“How long have you been… doing that?” he asks. “Feeling like it’s your job to outrun his brain?”
“Since we were teenagers,” I admit. “We were always close, even when we were just… brothers. He’d come to me when he was overwhelmed, and I’d distract him, get him out of the house, and help him breathe.
” I swallow. “It’s like his brain tries to eat itself alive.
Panic attacks. Nightmares. There was even a suicide attempt. ”
The word tastes like metal.
“And you were there,” Luis says. Not really a question.
“Yeah,” I say. “Not for the attempt. Nobody really knew, because he hid it from everyone. I remember the whole summer he just kept his wrist bandaged or wore long-sleeve shirts, which was so out of place given where we live.”
“How old were you then?” he asks.
“Twenty-one,” I say. “He was nineteen.”
“And you’re twenty-four now?” Luis checks the intake form.
“Yeah.” I nod. “He’s twenty-two.”
“So,” he says, “for at least a few years, you’ve been carrying this… responsibility. Of keeping him here.”
“Longer,” I say. “It just got… louder after the attempt.”
He nods slowly. “Tell me about last week,” he says. “What happened that made you decide now was the time to come in?”
I let my head drop back against the couch for a second, staring at the ceiling. “He had an away game,” I say. “Reno. I couldn’t go because of work. We talked about it and made a plan. He took his weighted blanket and my hoodie and said he’d text when they got back to campus.”
“His phone died on the bus,” I say. “He got back, crashed, plugged it in, and passed out. Totally normal. Totally fine. He did everything right. My brain just didn’t get the memo.”
“What did your brain do?” Luis asks.
“I waited for the text,” I say. “Didn’t come. Called. Voicemail. Called again. Nothing. And then I was in the truck. Driving to campus. Like if I didn’t physically see him breathing, something catastrophic would happen and it would be my fault for not checking.”
Luis is quiet for a second. “Was this the first time you’ve done something like that?” he asks.
“No,” I admit, “first time over something that… small. Usually it’s… he sends a weird text. Or goes quiet after saying he’s having a bad day. Or doesn’t answer when he’s actively spiraling. Then I go. This time, he was just… asleep.”
“How did it feel,” Luis asks, “when you saw him there? Sleeping under the weighted blanket, phone charging, totally okay?”
Like my knees were going to give out.
Like I wanted to shake him and apologize to him and scream at him and crawl into his bed and never leave again.
“It felt like someone punched a hole in my chest,” I say. “Relief, yeah. But also… anger. At myself. At him. At his brain. At his dad. At the situation. And then guilt for being angry, because how dare I be mad at someone whose life I’m trying to protect?”
Luis nods, jotting something down. “So, you went from fear to relief to anger to guilt,” he summarizes. “How quickly?”
“Like… thirty seconds,” I say. “Maybe less.”
“That’s a lot,” he says. “For your nervous system to process in half a minute.”
“Yeah, well.” I shrug. “I’m efficient.”
His mouth twitches. “Have you told him any of that?” he asks.
“Some,” I say. “He woke up. Apologized. Said he didn’t mean to scare me. Called me his emotional parole officer as a joke.” My jaw clenches. “He saw how it landed. He didn’t mean it like that, but… there’s some truth in it.”
“What do you mean?” Luis asks.
“I act like if I don’t check in on him, something bad will happen,” I say. “Like I have to monitor his mental state or he’ll… break. So yeah. A parole officer. Except he didn’t do anything wrong.”
“And what about you?” he asks. “Where are you in that metaphor?”
“I’m the… alarm system,” I say. “If something’s off, I go off.”
“And who resets the alarm?” he asks.
I stare at him.
“Exactly,” he says quietly.
I let out a breath. “Look,” I say, rubbing my hand over my face. “I’m not here to… complain about him. He’s the one who went through hell. I love him. I want to be there. I’m just… tired of living like if I fall asleep with my phone on silent, he’s going to die and it’ll be my fault.”
Luis nods slowly. “You love him,” he says. “You’ve been there for him in ways a lot of people wouldn’t know how to be. And you’re starting to realize the way you’ve been doing that might not be sustainable.”
“Yeah,” I say, voice rough. “That’s… about right.”
He leans forward a little, elbows on his knees. “What would happen,” he asks, “if you weren’t the only one on watch?”
I frown. “He has Dr. Kaur,” I say. “His therapist. And my mom. He texts her sometimes. And now his dad… kind of knows the full picture. That helps. Some.”
“What would happen if, when you got scared, instead of immediately deciding it was your job to go fix it, you said, ‘I’m scared,’ and reached out to one of them?” he asks. “Or even to him, with that vulnerability instead of just the action.”
My instinct is to reject it. “He doesn’t need my fear on top of his,” I say. “He’s already drowning. I’m the life raft.”
“What if the raft also needs support?” he asks.
I scowl at him. “That’s not how rafts work.”
“That’s exactly how humans work,” he says, unbothered. “You’re not a raft. You’re a person. You’re allowed to be afraid, too. And the burden of protecting him to the exclusion of your own needs… that’s not love. That’s martyrdom.”
The word lands and nothing about it feels steady.
“I’m not looking for gold stars,” I say. “I just don’t want him to die.”
“Of course you don’t,” he says. “That fear is valid. It’s based on real events. I’m not here to tell you to ‘chill out’ because everything will be fine. We both know that’s not how life works. What I am saying is that operating at a ten out of ten panic all the time—”
“It’s not all the time,” I cut in. “Sometimes it’s only a six.”
He smiles slightly. “Six out of ten panic, then,” he corrects. “That level, constantly, is not sustainable. For your body. For your mind. For your relationship. You will burn out. And then you won’t be able to show up the way you want to.”
“If I… ease up,” I say slowly. “What if something happens? What if he reaches for me and I’m not there and that’s… it?”
“That’s the crux of it, isn’t it?” he says. “The belief that you are the last line. The only thing standing between him and the worst.”
“Yeah,” I say. “Because I am.”
He shakes his head gently. “You are one line,” he says.
“An important one. But not the only one. His therapist is a line. The safety plan you mentioned on the intake form is a line. The crisis hotline. Your mother. Maybe his father, if he steps up. In a healthy support network, responsibility is shared. Not dropped onto one person like an anvil.”
I think of Mom at the kitchen table, telling me exactly that.
“Maybe,” I say. “That’s not how it feels.”
“I know,” he says. “Feelings are not facts. They’re indicators. They tell us where the fear lives. We can explore those fears without treating them as prophecies.”
I sink back into the couch, staring at the print of the beach on the wall. The waves are calm.
“What are you afraid will happen if you put some of that weight down?” he asks.
He doesn’t write as much as he talks. I appreciate that. Feels like talking to someone who gives a shit, not an interrogation.
“I’m afraid…” I start, then stop, because it sounds ugly in my head.
“Say it,” he prompts softly.
“I’m afraid he’ll think I love him less,” I admit. “That if I say, ‘Hey, I can’t be the one you call every single time you’re on the edge,’ he’ll… hear, ‘You’re a burden,’ and… go. Or… do something worse.”
Luis nods, like that’s exactly the answer he expected. “And is there any part of you,” he asks, “that worries if you let go of that responsibility, you won’t know who you are anymore?”
I look at him sharply. “I’ve been… the strong one since we were kids,” I say slowly. “The one people rely on. My mom. Caleb. Even his dad. ‘Miguel will handle it.’ It’s kind of my… role.”
“If you’re not the handler,” he says, “who are you?”
I hate him a little for asking.
“I don’t know,” I say honestly.
“Okay,” he says. “That’s a good place to start. Not knowing is honest. We can work with that.”
He jots something down, then glances back up. “You mentioned his father,” he says. “And that he recently found out about your relationship.”
“Yeah,” I say. “That was… fun.” I tell him about Harrington at the restaurant, about Caleb calling me his stepbrother, and about the way he went stiff after.
About Caleb finally telling Ashton the truth.
He said “experimental,” and I wanted to drive to his house and throw his fancy coffee machine out the window.
“And now he wants to talk to you both,” Luis says.
“Yeah,” I say. “On the phone, maybe in person. He says he wants to listen. That he doesn’t ‘agree,’ but he’s ‘learning.’”
“And how does that make you feel?” he asks.
“Like I’m getting called into the principal’s office,” I say. “Except this principal can sue me into oblivion.”
He smiles briefly. “Do you feel responsible,” he asks, “for how his father reacts?”
“Yes,” I say, without pretending otherwise. “If he flips and cuts him off, that’s going to be… framed as my fault. Even if I know that’s bullshit, I’m the variable. The thing that changed.”
“And what’s your fear if that happens?” he asks.