Chapter 42 #2
He nods. “When you saw his text yesterday—‘My brain is being a dick’—you told me you didn’t immediately call him. That you answered supportively but didn’t escalate.”
“Yeah,” I say. “That felt wrong and right at the same time. Old me would’ve dropped everything, driven to campus, and hauled him into the truck. New me… took a breath, checked the pattern, responded, but didn’t go full SWAT.”
“How did that feel in your body?” he asks.
“Like I was… neglecting him,” I admit. “Like, if anything happened, it would be because I didn’t do enough. But also, like, I could breathe. A little.”
“‘If anything happened, it would be because I didn’t do enough,’” he repeats. “Let’s sit with that sentence. What do you hear when you say it out loud?”
I hear a nineteen-year-old living in a delusional world watching his stepbrother yank at the long-sleeve shirt he insists on wearing in over a hundred-degree heat.
I swallow. “I hear… me setting myself up to be God,” I say. “Like I control every variable.”
“And do you?” he asks.
“No,” I say. “Obviously not.”
“Obviously?” he prompts.
I huff out a humorless laugh. “Intellectually,” I say. “Emotionally, it feels like I should. Like if I love him enough and watch him closely enough and answer every text within thirty seconds, I’ll catch it. Whatever ‘it’ is. And if I don’t, it’s on me.”
“That’s a heavy theology,” he says gently. “What would you say to Caleb if he told you the same thing about you?”
The answer’s immediate. “I’d tell him he’s full of shit,” I say. “That he can’t be in charge of keeping me alive. That’s literally why we have an electrician’s union and the county inspector and safety protocols and smoke alarms. So no one person has to see everything.”
“And yet,” narrowing his eyes, “you’re willing to put that burden on yourself for him.”
I stare at the soccer scarf because the alternative is looking at his very knowing face. “Yeah,” I say finally. “I am. Or I have been.”
He lets the silence sit for a second. The ticking of the clock on the wall gets louder.
“Our work,” he says, “is about letting you be a boyfriend, not a savior. That means trusting the net you’ve helped build. Trusting his skills. Trusting his word, unless his behavior starts contradicting it in obvious ways.”
“He says he’s okay when he’s not,” I say.
“Yes,” he says. “Sometimes. And he’s getting better at saying when he’s not. You’ve told me he labels his volume. He’s told you when he’s at a seven before. And you’ve responded. You’ve made plans. You’ve called in backup. That’s the net at work.”
I pick at the thread harder and it finally snaps.
“What if the net fails?” I ask. The words land heavy between us. “What if it’s not enough? What if everyone misses something at the same time?”
He doesn’t answer right away.
He never does with the hard ones.
“Then,” he says slowly, “it will be unbearable. And we will bear it. But it will not be your fault alone.”
The “we” makes something in my chest wobble. It’s stupid and small, but it helps.
“I’m not saying you shouldn’t pay attention,” he adds. “Or that you shouldn’t respond when he tells you he’s struggling. I’m saying you’re allowed to also… Go to work. Go to your own therapy. Play your video games and watch sports. Have a life that isn’t just perimeter duty.”
“Feels selfish,” I say.
“It’s necessary,” he counters. “Burned-out caretakers are not effective guardians. You’ve told me you want to build a life with him, not a bunker.”
I think about Caleb’s laugh when he’s actually happy, not just performing.
The way he talks about maybe coaching kids someday if the NBA doesn’t work out.
The way he looks in my kitchen, barefoot, making eggs badly.
I think about the future we half-joke about, a bigger bed, maybe a cat, yelling at hypothetical children to stop licking the outlets.
I don’t want that life to be triage.
“What if I’m wrong?” I ask quietly. “What if I trust the net and something slips through anyway?”
“Then we deal with it when and if it happens,” he says. “But right now, today, the data says you are showing up. He is showing up. The net is working. No one is asking you to stand on that cliff edge alone with your arms out forever.”
I let that sink in.
I don’t entirely believe him. But I want to.
We spend the rest of the session talking about other things, my mom’s tendency to show up with Tupperware when she’s worried, my own weird almost-zap this week, and how scared it made Caleb when I told him.
How, for a minute, the roles flipped, and he was the one fussing, his hands trembly on my wrist, asking if I was okay.
“You’re both allowed to be fragile,” Dr. Ortega says at one point. “It doesn’t always have to be him on the floor and you above him. Sometimes you both get to lie down.”
I picture that. Both of us on the carpet, staring at the ceiling, not talking, just existing.
It sounds… nice, actually.
At the end, he gives me the look. The one that means he’s about to assign homework.
“Between now and next week,” he says, “I want you to notice when you have the urge to drop everything and rush in. Don’t stop yourself from responding. Just… clock the impulse. Ask yourself: ‘Is this line-thinking or net-thinking?’ And then choose, intentionally, what you do.”
“More feelings journaling,” I say, making a face. “You therapists are all in cahoots.”
“Guilty,” he says. “Text the net if you need to. You’re in it, too, you know.”
“Unfortunately,” I mutter, but I smile.
He grins back. “Get out of here,” he says. “Go touch some safe wires.”
“Those don’t exist,” I say, standing. “But I’ll do my best.”
While I’m talking about nets and wires, Caleb is… somewhere.
He texted once during my morning break, just a picture of a coffee cup and the word “studyinggggg.” No volume rating. No sarcasm sticker. On any other day, I’d call that progress.
Today, I notice the missing number and file it away.
After therapy, I step out into the parking lot. The sun’s high and too bright, making everything look sharper than it feels. My phone buzzes in my pocket. I pull it out with that little jolt of expectation that’s become part of my autonomic nervous system.
Group chat shenanigans.
Benny sent a photo of a spider he found in a breaker box with the caption “OSHA’s new apprentice.”
No Caleb.
I check our conversation anyway.
Last messages:
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.
Miguel
We’re talking later. You’re not getting out of that with flower jokes. Love you.
Caleb
Love you more.
Nothing since.
He said he had a review, then group study and practice and that he’d be home before seven.
Knowing him, he’s probably in the library, hunched over his notes, mainlining coffee and pretending food is optional. He gets phone-tunnel vision when he’s in that mode.
You could text him, the line-voice says. Ask for a volume update. Make sure.
You could also trust that he’ll text if he needs you, the net-voice counters. He promised. You literally spent an hour talking about trusting him.
I stand in the weird middle of the parking lot, keys in one hand, phone in the other, feeling like this is bigger than “text or don’t text.”
“Okay,” I say under my breath. “Net-thinking.”
I open his thread.
Miguel
Therapy done. Dr. O says I’m not allowed to be God anymore, so you’re officially on your own with stats.
How’s it going?
I stare for a second, then hit send. No “volume?” No “are you safe?” Just an opening.
The three dots don’t appear. I blow out a breath, slide my phone into my pocket, and head for the truck.
He’s probably studying, I tell myself. For the first time in a long time, the thought doesn’t come with a surge of panic.
It just feels… true.
Somewhere, miles away, a glass I can’t see is straining.
I drive home, humming along to whatever song the radio throws at me, feeling almost—dangerously—hopeful.