Chapter 41
FORTY-ONE
CALEB
The email hits in the middle of me pretending to care about a group project.
We’re in one of the conference rooms off the library, the whiteboard stained with ghost equations, five of us hunched over laptops, the air thick with stress and stale coffee.
Jason’s ranting about how nobody read the rubric and I’m staring at a graph that might as well be hieroglyphics.
My phone buzzes.
I’m being a responsible student. I’m engaged. I’m—
It buzzes again.
The screen lights up with a notification.
Dad
Call me when you have a minute. It’s important.
My stomach does that drop-then-flip thing.
I shouldn’t open it. Not here. Not with four people who think my biggest problem is standard deviation. I open it anyway.
Dad
Please call me as soon as you can. Preferably somewhere private. It’s about your mother’s boyfriend.
The words go blurry for a second, like someone smeared my vision with a thumb.
“Caleb?” Jason snaps his fingers in front of my face. “You alive? We’re talking about who’s presenting the limitations section.”
“I can do it,” I say automatically. My voice sounds like it’s coming from the far end of the hallway. “The limitations. I’ve got it.”
“Cool,” he says, turning back to the whiteboard. “Just don’t roast us in front of the class.”
I nod like a bobblehead.
My phone buzzes again.
Dad
Can you talk now?
I swallow. “I, uh… need the bathroom,” I mumble, already shoving back my chair. “Two minutes.”
“Take your time,” Maria says without looking up. “I’m about to rearrange the entire slide order in a fit of rage.”
The hallway outside is mercifully empty. I duck into the nearest stairwell, that weird echo-chamber space that always smells like dust and someone’s long-ago weed pen.
My hand shakes as I hit call.
He picks up on the second ring. “Caleb?”
“Hey,” I say. “I’m… at school. In a stairwell. What’s going on?”
There’s a tiny pause, paper rustling in the background. I can picture him at his desk, glasses on, surrounded by case files and legal pads.
“I got a call from the DA’s office this morning,” he says, going straight into lawyer tone. “About… him.”
I don’t need him to specify who. My body already knows. My shoulders go tight. His voice softens. “He died,” Dad says. “Last night. In his sleep, according to the report. Complications from… a number of health issues.”
The stairwell tilts. I sit down heavily on the cold concrete step because my knees suddenly don’t understand gravity.
“Oh,” I say.
It comes out very small.
“I wanted you to hear it from me,” he continues. “Not… see it somewhere or have it dropped into a random letter. They said they’d be in contact with you to let you know, since you were the main victim in the case, but I asked if I could tell you first.”
Main victim.
My brain feels… empty and loud at the same time. Like someone vacuumed it out and left a TV on static in the middle.
“Caleb?” Dad prompts gently. “Are you… there?”
“Yeah,” I say. “I’m here.”
“You’re allowed to feel however you feel about this,” he says, choosing his words carefully, like he practiced them. “Relieved, angry, indifferent… Whatever comes up, it’s valid.”
I laugh and it comes out all wrong—too sharp, too thin. “You have a script for this?” I ask. “Is there a module in law school called ‘How to Tell Your Kid Their Abuser Died’?”
He exhales. “I talked with a colleague,” he admits. “And to your stepmother. I wanted to… not make it worse.”
My chest squeezes. “Gold star,” I say. “You did fine.”
Silence hums between us for a second.
“If I’m being honest,” he says quietly, “my first reaction was… relief. That he can’t hurt anyone else. That there’s no chance of appeals or bullshit parole hearings. It’s… final.”
Final.
The word lands in my gut like a stone.
“Maybe,” he continues, “this will… help you move on. In some ways. Close a door, even if it doesn’t erase what happened.”
Fucking wow.
The phrase lands wrong. “Okay, done now, right? Trauma solved.”
“Right,” I say. My throat feels tight. “Move on.”
He hears it. I know he does. “That’s… not what I meant,” he says quickly. “I don’t expect you to just—”
“I know,” I cut in, because if he keeps trying to explain, I’m going to say something I can’t unsay. “I get it. You’re relieved. He’s gone. I am too. I think.”
The truth is, I don’t know what I feel yet.
Relief is there, like a thin thread of air in a smoke-choked room. But there’s also this weird, ugly sadness coiled low in my stomach.
For a man who hurt me.
For a version of him that might’ve existed if someone had yanked him out of his own hell earlier.
For a kid somewhere whose abuser is still alive.
“Caleb,” Dad says carefully, “we can talk about this more. In person. With Dr. Kaur looped in if you want. I just… didn’t want you finding out alone, without context.”
“Too late,” my brain whispers.
I’m always alone with context.
“Thanks for telling me,” I say. The words feel stiff in my mouth, like they’re made of cardboard. “I, uh… have to get back to my group. We’re trying to not fail a presentation.”
“Okay,” he says. “I’ll… let you go. Text me later, if you want. Or don’t, if you need space.”
“Yeah,” I say. “One day at a time, right?”
He exhales. “One day at a time.”
I hang up.
The stairwell is suddenly too big and too small at the same time. The buzzing in my skull cranks up a notch.
He died.
He died.
He’s gone.
He can’t hurt you anymore.
My body doesn’t get that memo. Every nerve ending feels like it’s bracing for a blow that’s twenty years late.
For a second, I picture eight-year-old me in that kitchen.
Tiny, hungry, spine straight as a board.
Picture that man’s fist hitting the wall next to my head. The sound. The smell of beer and anger.
You’re too much.
You’re not worth the food you eat.
You should be grateful anyone keeps you.
I squeeze my eyes shut.
In for four.
Hold.
Out for six.
The exhale shudders out of me like it’s caught on barbed wire. I pull out my phone again. My thumb hovers over Miguel’s name.
Caleb
Miggy, so… You know the piece of shit who helped my mom abuse me? He’s dead.
I stare at the words. My eyes burn.
I imagine his face when he reads it. The worry. The immediate Where are you? I’m coming right now, energy. The way his whole body will go tight with protective rage. The point is, he works his ass off, and my brain is already eating him alive.
Everyone is tired of my trauma, the thought whispers.
Dr. Kaur with her endless gentle homework.
Miguel, with his care-coded questions and his hands always hovering like he’s ready to catch me. He’d be better off with someone who isn’t a walking case study, another thought adds, so soft I almost miss it.
My thumb hits backspace until the text bubble is empty.
Instead, I type
Caleb
How’s your day?
I stare at that too, then lock my phone before I can send it.
Coward.
Or maybe I’m just a survivalist.
I push up from the step and force my legs to carry me back to the conference room. By the time I open the door, my face is back to neutral, the mask slipping into place without conscious effort.
Jason looks up. “You good?”
“Yeah,” I say, sliding into my chair. “Let’s talk limitations.”
I make it through the rest of the meeting and then through the presentation. I make it through an entire stats review session where the professor says “significance” so many times the word loses meaning.
I do not remember any of it.
My brain feels like a TV with three channels playing at once.
Channel One: He’s dead. He’s dead. He’s dead.
Channel Two: What if this is your shot to finally stop being “the traumatized one” and you blow it?
Channel Three: Everyone is going to get tired. They won’t say it, but they will. You’re too much work.
Martin catches me outside the lecture hall. “You look like ass,” he announces cheerfully. “Everything okay?”
“Thanks,” I say. “Love you too.”
He eyes me. “You good? Where’s your head at?”
“Seven,” I say automatically, then immediately hate myself for how easily it’s higher. It’s eight. Maybe nine in flashes.
Martin whistles low. “You gonna be good for the exam?”
“Yeah,” I say. “Just… preemptively mourning my GPA.”
He grins. “I’ll bring funeral flowers.”
We split off in different directions. My phone buzzes in my pocket.
Miguel
Survived another panel from hell. Boss gave me the “I don’t want your mom suing me” speech again.
How’s the love of my life?
I stop in the middle of the sidewalk.
For a second, the urge to tell him everything almost bowls me over.
My fingers hover, shaking. I can see his face in my head, eyes going wide and dark, shoulders squaring like he’s about to fight a ghost. He’d show up. He’d cancel whatever he has going and show up. He always does.
He shouldn’t have to.
Caleb
Day’s been… a lot. I’ll tell you later. Good news, you still get to pick my funeral flowers if stats goes badly.
Three dots.
Miguel
We’re talking later. You’re not getting out of that with flower jokes. Love you.
I swallow.
Caleb
Love you more.
My thumb hovers over his name again. On a different day, in a different mood, I’d send a “volume is loud” text. I’d tag it as a yellow or orange alert. Today, my pride—or maybe the eight-year-old who learned that needing things is dangerous—clamps my mouth shut.
You already told Dr. K, I tell myself. That counts. That’s enough.
Except.
I didn’t.
I consider emailing her. The subject line forms in my head on the walk back to the condo.
Subject: Update re: case study / news
Dr. K,
So, a fun thing happened today—
I stop. Close the Notes app.
She’ll make that face. The one that’s compassionate and worried and sees too much. She’ll remind me that big news plus exam stress plus nightmares is not a small thing. She’ll suggest bumping up our sessions or checking in more.
I can’t. I don’t want her to rearrange her schedule around my latest plot twist.
I’m so tired of being the plot twist.