Chapter 40
FORTY
MIGUEL
The first time I almost got fried on the job, I was twenty and stupid. Today, I’m twenty-four and allegedly smarter, and it still nearly happens.
“Kill the breaker,” I yell down from the ladder.
“It’s off!” Benny calls back.
My multimeter disagrees.
The panel in this old Victorian is a nightmare—half-assed add-ons, mislabeled breakers, and aluminum wire some genius thought was a good idea in 1973. I’m reaching in to tighten a lug when the metal of my driver kisses something it shouldn’t.
There’s a bright pop and a flash of white at the edge of my vision. My hand jerks back on reflex, adrenaline hitting so hard my ears ring.
“?Puta madre!” I bark, shoulders slamming into the attic beams.
“You good?” Benny yells.
My heart is sprinting. Hands tingling. “Yeah,” I call back, my voice way steadier than it has any right to be. “Arc. Panel’s a piece of shit. Don’t come up.”
I sit there on the joist for a second, breathing, sweat cooling under my shirt. That smell—burned dust and singed insulation—takes me right back to being twenty and thinking I was invincible.
How fucking wrong I was.
“You alive?” Benny’s head appears through the hatch anyway because he’s useless.
“Barely,” I mutter. “Breaker’s mislabeled. Neutral’s doing fuck-all. We’re pulling this whole thing.”
He whistles low. “Homeowners are gonna love that bill.”
“Not as much as they’d love my funeral,” I say. “Go get me the lockout tags. I’m not trusting this bitch.”
By the time we finish, my shoulders ache, there’s fiberglass in my hair, and my boss has given us the safety lecture twice.
“Protocols exist for a reason, Veracruz,” he says, pointing a thick finger at me. “No trusting labels. You always confirm. I don’t want your mom suing my ass because you cooked yourself like a tamale.”
“Noted,” I say, swallowing the spike of guilt that hits every time someone mentions my family in the same breath as me dying. “It won’t happen again.”
He grunts. “Good. Go grab lunch, then head to the duplex on Mission. They’ve got a flickering bathroom light and a mysterious burning smell. Your favorite combo.”
“Can’t wait,” I deadpan.
The café line is long and slow. I’m sweaty, hungry, and more rattled than I want to admit. My phone’s been on Do Not Disturb in my pocket since the attic, per company policy.
When I finally grab my sandwich and step outside, the ocean wind hits my face like a blessing. I flip my phone over.
Five messages.
Two from Mom, pictures of some stew she’s “experimenting” with. One from the group chat with Benny and the guys, a meme about OSHA violations.
And two from Caleb.
Caleb 11:07 A.M.
My brain is being a dick today.
It’s 1:26.
Guilt punches me in the gut. I scroll down.
Caleb
Do you ever wish you could just… pause? Like, stop existing for a little bit and then pick up again when everything’s less heavy.
That one’s at 11:32.
The air feels thinner. I lean against the side of my truck, thumb hovering while my brain tries to decide how bad this is on the internal Richter scale. We’ve been talking about not treating every wobble like a five-alarm fire. Dr. Ortega’s voice ghosts through my head.
“If you jump to DEFCON 1 every time he sighs, you’ll both burn out. Look at patterns. Look at behavior over time. Believe him when he says, ‘I’m okay but struggling,’ until his actions tell you otherwise.”
Caleb’s been… okay-ish. Exam week. Psych lecture from hell. Nightmares. He told me the headline version last night. He’s eating. He’s going to therapy. We’re talking.
Also, let's be real, I just nearly got zapped into the afterlife. My nervous system is not exactly a reliable narrator right now.
I take a breath.
In for four.
Hold.
Out.
Okay.
“Brain being a dick” is standard Caleb vocabulary. “Pause existing” is… not great, but not “I’m done,” either. It sounds like “I’m exhausted, please God, let me get off the ride for a minute,” which, fucking same.
Miguel
Just saw this. I was crawling around in an attic, trying not to get turned into chicharrón. I’m sorry your brain’s being an asshole. We can pause this weekend, yeah? Movie marathon, no alarms, all the carbs. You, me, the couch, and blackout curtains.
I send another.
Miguel
Also, thanks for telling me. Even if it’s just “ugh.” That counts.
I hit send before I can start wordsmithing it to death. The urge to follow up with “Are you safe?” claws at my throat. I sit with it.
He promised he’d text one of us if the volume hit the danger zone.
“Trust the plan,” I tell myself.
Trust him.
The reply comes a minute later.
Caleb
Movie marathon and carbs sound perfect. I’m okay. Just tired. Long psych day. Love you.
My shoulders drop a fraction.
Miguel
Love you more. Text me if the volume gets past 7, okay?
The little dots appear.
Caleb
You got it, babe.
I tuck the phone back into my pocket, unpeel the sandwich wrapper, and take a bite that tastes like sawdust. If this were six months ago, I would’ve called him immediately.
Now, I’m trying to give us both room to breathe.
Room to be… normal.
Whatever the fuck that means.
The duplex on Mission is exactly what it sounds like, old, badly wired, and full of people who think “burning smell” is a personality trait their house grew overnight.
By the time I find the melted wire nut hiding in the bathroom light box, my shirt is sticking to my back and my brain keeps replaying Caleb’s text.
Do you ever wish you could just… pause?
Yeah, baby.
All the fucking time.
I fix the wiring, lecture the tenant about not overloading outlets, and assure them their house is not, in fact, seconds away from becoming a bonfire.
In the truck on the way back to the shop, I thumb my phone at a red light.
No new messages from him. Group chat has devolved into arguing about which fast food fries are superior.
Out of habit, I tap our thread open again.
Caleb
I’m okay. Just tired.
He answered. He used the word okay.
If he wasn’t, he’d say something else. He promised.
Right?
Traffic moves. I throw the truck into gear and go.
By the time I get home, my whole body feels like it’s been used as a percussion instrument. Long day, long week. I can feel the headache gathering at the base of my skull. The condo is dim, the only light coming from the kitchen over the sink and the blue wash of the TV in the living room.
Caleb’s on the couch. Legs all crisscrossed, laptop open, but clearly not being used. He’s wearing one of my T-shirts and his own sweatpants, his hair shoved back like he’s been running his hands through it all day.
He looks up when I close the door.
“Hey,” he says. His voice is soft but not flattened. His eyes are tired. Not empty.
“Hey, hermoso,” I say, kicking my boots off and hanging my keys on the hook. “How’s my favorite exam gremlin?”
Caleb huffs a laugh. “That’s a hate crime,” he says. “I’m suing.”
“You can’t sue me,” I say, dropping my bag. “My lawyer is your dad.”
He makes a face. “Low blow.”
I flop down onto the other end of the couch, stretching my legs out so my feet brush his foot that’s poking out. God, sitting feels good. Existing horizontally feels incredible.
“Long day?” he asks, studying me.
“Almost got turned into a cautionary tale,” I admit. “Panel tried to kiss me. I said no. Consent matters.”
His eyes widen. “What the fuck, Miggy?”
“I’m fine,” I add quickly. “Scary for, like, half a second, then just annoying. Benny and the boss gave me the safety talk. I am now OSHA’s least favorite child.”
He shifts closer, hand sliding up my shin to my knee. “You sure you’re okay?”
“Yeah,” I say. “Just tired. How’s the noise?”
He shrugs one shoulder. “Static-y,” he says. “Five? Six? I kind of lost track during my third cup of coffee.”
I watch his face, the way his mouth twists. He’s joking. He’s not… bright and shiny, but he’s here. He’s making eye contact. He’s touching me.
Not an eight. Not dissociated.
“Did you eat?” I ask.
“Yes, baby,” he mutters. “I had a burrito with Martin after our study session, and a granola bar, and a muffin some girl from our stats study group abandoned in the library.”
My eyebrows go up. “You ate someone’s orphaned muffin?”
“She left a plate of them,” he says defensively. “It was either me or the trash. I rescued it. I’m a hero.”
“Sure,” I say. “Muffin CPS.”
He smiles for real at that, a tired, crooked thing that still hits me right in the sternum.
“Come here,” he says suddenly, closing his laptop and setting it aside. He scoots down until he can push his legs under mine and then climbs half into my lap, tucking himself against my side like I’m the couch and the real couch is optional.
I wrap an arm around him automatically. His weight, his warmth, the smell of his shampoo—it all works better than Advil on the growing pain behind my eye.
“You okay?” I ask quietly, fingers tracing the seam of his T-shirt. “You texted some… existential shit earlier.”
His breath hitches, just barely. “Yeah,” he says. “Sorry. It sounded dramatic when I read it back.”
“Don’t apologize,” I say. “Drama is allowed. I’m just checking in.”
Caleb picks at a loose thread on my jeans and I want to smack his hand away. “It was just one of those brain days,” he says. “Lecture was rough, exams are rougher, and my nightmares are being assholes. I’m just… tired. In my bones.”
“Yeah,” I say, pressing my mouth to his temple. “You been doing a lot. Brain deserves hazard pay.”
He snorts. “Think we can unionize?”
“Absolutely,” I say. “Step one, we demand mandatory naps and pizza.”
“See, now you’re just describing my ideal society,” he mumbles.
We sit like that for a while, half-watching some cooking show that autoplayed. A guy is screaming about risotto like it personally offended him. Caleb’s breathing evens out a little, his body slowly unspooling against mine. I keep waiting for him to say something more.
He doesn’t.
He just… melts.
And I’m so fucking tired—physically, emotionally—that when my own eyes start closing, I don’t fight it as hard as I probably should.
“Bed?” I ask eventually, voice rough.
“Yeah,” he says. “If I watch one more guy call mashed potatoes ‘elevated,’ I’m going to commit a crime.”
We brush our teeth side by side, bumping hips in the tiny bathroom. He makes a face in the mirror and nudges under my arm like he’s trying to climb back into my ribcage.
In bed, he doesn’t even pretend to stay on his side. He tucks himself against me, back to my chest, my arm wrapped around his waist. It’s our default now, especially on bad nights. He talks a big game about being the little spoon being “bottom propaganda,” but he sleeps better this way.
“Volume?” I murmur into his hair.
He’s quiet for a second.
“Seven,” he whispers. “But it’s… more like a hum than a scream.”
Something in my spine goes tight. Seven is where the safety plan says we start paying closer attention. No more pretending it’s just exam stress.
“You want to talk more?” I ask. “We can. Or we can just… breathe.”
He takes a long, shaky breath. “I don’t have the words without turning into a whole big thing right now,” he says. “Can we… raincheck? I promise I’ll tell you more when my brain isn’t chewing on itself.”
I hesitate for half a second.
“Yeah,” I say finally. “We can raincheck. I’m holding you to that, though.”
“I know,” he whispers. “I will. I—”
He cuts himself off, then twists just enough to look back at me. In the faint light bleeding around the curtains, his eyes look huge.
“I love you,” he says.
It sounds almost like an apology.
I cup the back of his neck, thumb stroking the soft hair there. “I love you more,” I say. “Even when your brain is a dick. Especially then.”
That earns me a small smile, barely there, but real. He turns back around, presses my hand flat to his chest like he’s pinning himself in place, and lets out a breath that feels like it empties him.
His heartbeat thuds under my palm. Steady. Present.
“You’re safe,” I murmur. “I’ve got you.”
“Yeah,” he whispers. “I know. I’m just… tired.”
“Then sleep,” I say. “We can pause this weekend. Just you, me, the couch, and enough Netflix to rot our brains.”
“Deal,” he says, voice already fuzzing at the edges.
I lie there for a while after his breaths go deep and slow, listening to the fan whir and the occasional car hiss down the street outside. My muscles finally start to let go, the ache in my shoulders easing under his weight.
He told me it was a seven. He told me.
He promised to tell me if it got worse.
And he will, I tell myself.
He will.