Chapter 31 #2
“That he already knows the worst parts,” I admit. “That I already told him the truth. That if he was going to go nuclear immediately, he might’ve done it already.”
She nods. “So this trip is less about revealing something new and more about… seeing how he behaves with what he already knows.”
“Yeah,” I say. “Which is almost scarier.”
“Because it’s out of your control,” she says.
“Yeah,” I mutter.
She tilts her head. “What pieces are in your control?”
“Uh. I can control… how much I’m willing to answer in the moment. Like we planned. What I share. What I redirect. I can control… whether I stay in conversations that feel like they’re cutting into bone.”
She nods. “What about support?”
“Miguel will be there,” I say. “Obviously. And my stepmom. She’s… already on our side. Loudly. And I can text you. Or Luis, apparently, if Miguel lets me steal his therapist for a second.”
Her mouth quirks. “I suspect Luis would not mind being stolen, briefly.”
“I hate knowing my boyfriend’s therapist’s first name,” I grumble. “It makes me feel like I’m in a crossover episode.”
“How does it feel,” she asks, “knowing Miguel is getting his own support around this?”
I stare at my hands. “Good,” I say, then wince. “And guilty. But less guilty than before.”
“What shifted?” she asks.
“He told me,” I say slowly, “that he’s doing it so he can be in this for the long haul. That he doesn’t want to burn out. And you… kind of said the same thing. That it’s about staying, not about me being so awful he needs professional help to tolerate me.”
“And you’re starting to believe that,” she says. Not a question.
“A little,” I admit. “On good days.”
“Good,” she says. “I’m going to suggest we treat this spring break as… exposure with safety rails. We can’t remove all the anxiety. But we can build you a harness.”
I snort. “Great. Emotional rock climbing.”
“Exactly,” she says. “Let’s talk about concrete supports. What do you need to feel like you can breathe in that house?”
We spend the rest of the session building a list, like no heavy talks after 10 p.m. My brain cannot handle existential dread when it’s already fried.
Giving myself permission to leave the room if I start to spiral, no explanation required in the moment.
Code phrases I can say to clue in Miguel on how I’m feeling.
If I say, “I’m grabbing water,” it means “Please get me out of here.” One serious topic per day, max.
We don’t let every single meal turn into therapy-lite with Dad as an unlicensed practitioner.
And daily check-ins, a fifteen-minute recap with Miguel before bed, where we actually say how we’re doing instead of just collapsing.
She writes all of it down, then slides the paper toward me at the end.
“These are guidelines,” she says. “You’re not failing if you can’t follow them perfectly. But they give you something to hold onto. Something besides fear.”
I fold the paper carefully and tuck it into my notebook. My chest feels… tight, but in a more contained way.
“Can I ask you something?” I say softly.
“Of course.”
“If he doesn’t… get there,” I say. “If he never fully accepts this. If he’s always a little uncomfortable, a little… withholding. Am I allowed to still love him? Or is that… betraying myself?”
Dr. Kaur’s expression softens in that sharp way I’m starting to recognize as her about-to-say-something-important face.
“You are allowed to love people who can’t love you back in the way you wish they would,” she says. “What we’re trying to protect you from is shaping yourself to fit inside their limitations.”
“I don’t know how not to do that,” I whisper.
“That’s what we’re practicing,” she says. “You can love your father. You can feel gratitude for what he’s done. You can also say, ‘This part of me is not up for debate,’ and let him feel whatever he feels about that without using his reaction as a verdict on your worth.”
“We’ll talk again after you get back,” she adds gently. “You don’t have to process all of this in real time. You just have to get through the week using the tools you have.”
“Okay,” I whisper. “Yeah. Okay.”
“Text your support system,” she says as I stand. “Let them know what you decided. That includes Miguel.”
I roll my eyes. “He’s going to want to make a color-coded version of this list.”
“Good,” she says, smiling. “Let him.”
Miguel is already at the condo when I get there, hair damp from his shower, hoodie sleeves shoved up to his elbows as he scrolls on his phone at the table. There’s a grocery bag on the counter and a glass pan of brownies on the island. He looks up as soon as the door clicks. “Hey, baby.”
“Hey.” I drop my backpack by the couch and toe off my shoes, suddenly more tired than I realized.
He opens his arms without a word, and I go straight into them.
For a good thirty seconds, that’s all we do. My face buried in his chest, his hands moving steadily up and down my back.
“How’d it go?” he finally asks, voice low.
I press my cheek against his sternum. “We built a harness,” I mumble.
“That sounds like a Kaur metaphor.”
“It is,” I say. “We made a list. For spring break.”
Pulling back just enough to see my face. “Wanna show me?”
I dig the folded paper out of my notebook and hand it over. He scans it, lips moving silently as he reads.
His mouth curves at “no heavy talks after 10 p.m.”
“I like that one,” he says. “Can we apply that to year-round life?”
“Yes,” I say immediately. “Put it in our constitution.”
He keeps reading, expression shifting subtly at each bullet point. When he gets to “code phrase: I’m grabbing water,” his jaw tightens.
“Yeah,” he says quietly. “We can do that.”
“Is it dumb?” I ask. “Overkill?”
He shakes his head. “No,” he says. “It’s smart. It’s… intentional. It means we’re not just walking in there hoping for the best. We’re giving ourselves an exit.”
I swallow. “You’re really okay staying there? The whole week?”
“Are you?” he counters.
I think about the house. The kitchen where Celeste taught me how to make scrambled eggs properly. The living room couch where I’ve watched hundreds of hours of playback film with Dad. The hallway I stalked down after fights. The bedroom where I had my first real panic attack.
“I’m…” I start, then stop. “I’m scared. But I don’t want to avoid it forever. I don’t want the house to turn into this… haunted place I can never set foot in.”
Miguel nods slowly. “Then we go,” he says. “And if it gets too bad, we cut it short.”
“Can we… actually do that?” I ask. “Just leave?”
He looks me dead in the eye. “If he crosses a line and you’re bleeding out emotionally? Yeah. We can leave. I’ll pack the car myself.”
“You see Luis tomorrow?” I ask.
He nods, folding the paper back up carefully, like it’s something precious. “Yeah. Gonna talk to him about this. About… not treating this like my personal exam.”
“You’re allowed to be worried too, you know,” I say. “This isn’t just my thing.”
“I know,” he says. “I just… I don’t want you to feel like you have to carry my fear on top of yours.”
“That’s what the harness is for,” I say. “Sharing the weight.”
His eyes soften. “Look at you, quoting your therapist.”
“I’m very impressionable,” I say primly.
Miguel laughs and tucks the paper into a drawer by the fridge. “We’ll put it somewhere safe,” he says. “We can look at it before we leave Saturday. Maybe add to it.”
“Maybe a rule about not letting Mom make five thousand tamales,” I say. “She will. She’ll try.”
“Never,” he says. “I support her culinary ambitions.”
He pulls me back in and kisses me, slow and easy.
“I’m proud of you,” he murmurs against my lips. “For going and for planning.” All of this is in between tender kisses that have me on cloud nine. “For not letting your brain talk you out of living your life.”
“You say that a lot,” I whisper.
“I mean it a lot,” he says.
I breathe him in.
Miguel’s hoodie and coffee in the morning.
Lists in drawers.
Therapists who know our names.
Parents who are trying, even if they’re clumsy about it.
“Hey, Miggy?” I say quietly.
“Yeah?”
“If it goes bad,” I say. “If he… doesn’t come around the way I hope. Are you going to regret… this? Us? Getting in this deep with someone whose dad might never be fully okay with it?”
He studies my face for a long, careful moment.
“No,” he says simply. “I’ll regret the shit out of life if I let your dad’s discomfort decide who I get to love. I’m in this because of you. Not because of him. You’re my choice and I’ll choose you no matter what stands in the way.”
“Okay,” I whisper. “Okay.”
His forehead presses against mine. “C’mon,” he says. “Let’s make that fake stir-fry I pretended I know how to cook, and then you can explain the difference between ANOVA and regression to me like I’m five.”
“I don’t even understand the difference,” I protest.
“Perfect,” he says. “We’ll be confused together.”
After dinner and a half-hearted study session where Miguel mostly just quizzed me on vocab and complimented my brain, we curled up in bed. I lie half on his chest, listening to his heartbeat, feeling the solid weight of his arm around me.
“Scared?” he asks quietly into the dark.
“Yeah,” I say. “You?”
“Yeah,” he admits. “But less hopeless-scared. More… like first-day-of-school scared.”
I huff a laugh. “Do we get new backpacks?”
“We get new coping skills,” he says. “That’s better.”
I don’t totally agree, but the idea makes me smile.
“Hey, baby?” He murmurs.
“Mm?”
“If, at any point, you want to change the plan,” he says, “we can. You’re not locked in. You’re not obligated to keep putting yourself through something that hurts just because you told him you’d come.”
I nod against his chest. “Same goes for you. If being there with my dad gets too weird, you’re allowed to tap out too. I don’t want you martyring yourself for me.”
He huffs. “No martyrdom,” he says. “Harness only.”
“Harness only,” I echo, smiling into his shirt.
We lie there in the quiet for a while, the kind that feels earned instead of empty.
My brain is still scared.
Still waiting for the other shoe to drop.