Chapter 45 Caleb
FORTY-FIVE
CALEB
Sound comes first. A distant, steady beeping. Something like huffing air. Footsteps. Then the low murmur of voices that don’t belong to our condo, or campus, or anywhere I recognize.
Then feeling.
My tongue is dry, and my mouth tastes like chemicals and something sour. My arm hurts, a dull throb at the wrist, a deeper ache in the crook of my elbow. My chest feels tight but not in the panic way, more like I’m wearing a too-small shirt.
I try to swallow and my throat protests, raw and scratchy.
A voice cuts through the fog. Warm, feminine and definitely someone I don’t recognize.
“Hey. Hey. Caleb, you with me?”
I fight my way toward it. My eyelids feel glued together, but I pry them open. The ceiling above me is off-white and full of holes. Not our ceiling. A fluorescent panel buzzes quietly overhead.
I turn my head.
Miguel is slumped in a plastic chair pulled up to the bed, body folded into an angle it was never meant to hold.
His head is resting on his forearm on the mattress, curls messy, jaw covered in dark stubble.
His other hand is wrapped around mine, fingers loose but still there like he fell asleep mid-guard duty.
There’s dried red in the cracks of his knuckles.
Oh.
The cabinet. The pills. The blade. The way the room tilted and stretched away from me. The feeling of my own heartbeat echoing in my ears and then—
Nothing.
Panic spits up my spine, sharp and clean, making my fingers twitch in his grip. That makes his head snap up like someone yanked a string in his spine.
“Hey,” he blurts, eyes going wide. He looks like he hasn’t slept in years. “Hey, pretty boy. Hi.”
His voice cracks on the last word.
“Hi,” I croak.
It sounds like I swallowed glass.
Feels like it too.
Miguel’s mouth wobbles. “You scared the shit out of me,” he says, which is fair.
I try to say sorry and it comes out as a croaky breath.
A shape moves in my peripheral vision. I drag my eyes over. There’s a nurse in blue scrubs at the other side of the bed, fingers on my wrist. Her face is kind and brisk at the same time. “Good morning, Caleb,” she says. “Or… afternoon, technically. I’m Cassie. You gave us a bit of a scare.”
“Bit,” Miguel repeats under his breath, like the word personally offends him.
“We’re going to do a quick check, okay?” Cassie says, ignoring him with professional grace. “Can you tell me your full name?”
“Caleb… Alexander Burton,” I manage. My tongue feels three sizes too big.
“Good,” she says. “Do you know where you are?”
I blink at the ceiling. “Hospital?”
“Yep,” she says. “Do you know what city we’re in?”
“Santa Cruz.” The words scrape their way out. “I—” My throat fights me. I swallow. “What… day?”
“Sunday,” Miguel supplies softly. “You’ve been kind of in and out for the past two days.”
Sunday.
I try to rewind. I remember the stats review. The dorms. The kitchen. The bathroom. The pills.
“Miggy…” The room tilts for a second and I shut my eyes, then open them again. “Did I…?”
Miguel’s hand tightens around mine. “You’re here,” he says quickly. “That’s the important part. We can fill in the rest later.”
My chest tightens. Shame curls up in my gut, hot and acidic. Like I’m gonna throw up.
Cassie’s hand is gentle on my shoulder. “You’re safe,” she says.
“We’ve got you on fluids. The medication you took is working its way out of your system, and your labs look good so far.
You’re going to be very sleepy and you might feel nauseated.
That’s totally normal. Try not to fight the tired too much, okay? Sleep is your friend right now.”
Sleep.
Yeah, that tracks.
“What—” I shift my left hand and a sharp sting snakes up my arm. I glance down.
There’s a bandage around my wrist. Fresh white gauze, with a little blush of red seeping through in one spot.
Cassie follows my gaze. “We cleaned and dressed that cut,” she says evenly. “It’s not deep. You’re okay.”
I can’t look at it. I focus on Miguel instead.
He looks like a car hit him. Dark eye circles, jaw clenched, hair a tangle he obviously hasn’t bothered to deal with.
There’s a faint bruise forming on his upper arm where he must’ve hit the door.
He’s still in his work jeans and a T-shirt with the sleeves stretched out.
His boots are pushed under the chair, laces half untied like he kicked them off in a hurry.
I did that.
“I…” I swallow again. “I fucked up.”
Miguel’s eyes go sharp. “No,” he says, immediate and fierce. “You got overwhelmed. That’s it. You’re still here. That’s the only part that matters.”
Hot tears sting behind my eyes.
“I broke my promise,” I whisper. “I said… I said I’d tell you. Before. If it got… that loud.”
His mouth twists and for a second he looks like he might shatter.
He takes a breath instead. “You told me you were tired,” he says.
“You told me the volume was a seven. You told Dr. K about the nightmares. You did a lot of things right. This isn’t a grade on your performance, baby.
It’s your nervous system screaming and we need to listen better. ”
Cassie gives my hand a last pat. “I’m going to go update your chart and let the doctor know you’re awake enough for real conversation,” she says. “If you feel like you’re going to throw up, there’s a little green bag right here, okay? Hit the call button if you need anything.”
She slips out, leaving us in a bubble of beeps and fluorescent hum.
Miguel’s eyes are wet. The left one has a tiny red burst in the white. There’s a smear of something on his hoodie sleeve.
“You found me,” I say softly.
He huffs out a breath that might be a laugh and might be a sob. “Yeah,” he says. “I got the fun job again.”
The joke is weak and shaky, but it lands.
Barely.
“I locked the door,” I say. The memory is hazy, but that part sticks. “I thought… if I did it, I didn’t… want you to see.”
His hand tightens around mine hard enough to hurt.
“Too fucking bad,” he says, his voice shaking a little. “I’m greedy. I want you alive, even if it hurts to see you scared. Even if it hurts like this.”
A tear slips down his cheek. He swipes it away angrily with the heel of his hand, like it betrayed him.
“I’m sorry,” I whisper. The words feel insufficient and too big at the same time. “I’m so sorry. I’m sorry I… used you for sex to drown it all out. I’m sorry I lied about the volume. I’m sorry—”
Miguel leans in and very gently presses his forehead to mine. The angle is weird from the bed, but he makes it work.
“Hey,” he says, voice low and rough. “You don’t have to confess all your sins in one go. This isn’t church. There’s no line of people waiting for the booth.”
“I almost made you watch me die,” I say, and my voice cracks open.
That makes him flinch. His fingers curl around mine like he’s trying to fuse our hands together.
“You didn’t,” he says. “You’re here. You scared me, yeah. You drop-kicked me straight into one of my worst nightmares. But you didn’t succeed. Your body said, ‘Absolutely the fuck not,’ and you are here.”
I let that sink in, slow and painful.
The thought that my body might have chosen life in spite of my brain is… a lot.
“What… happens now?” I manage.
Miguel pulls back enough to look at me. There’s fear and love and something like relief wrestling in his eyes.
“Doc’s gonna come in and give you the official spiel,” he says.
“But the short version is: monitoring, talking to the psych people, and more support. You’re on the ICU floor now.
They’ll probably move you to the psych side or at least put you on a hold once you’re medically clear. ”
I grimace. “A hold,” I repeat. The word tastes like metal. “Like… the seventy-two-hour thing?”
“Probably,” he says quietly. “They call it different things depending on who you talk to. Dr. K knows. She’s… involved.”
Of course she is.
Shame and gratitude wrestle in my chest. She warned me about this exact slope. I rolled down it anyway. A knock on the door saves me from spiraling. It opens a crack. “?Puedo pasar?” Mom’s voice carries, small and careful.
Miguel glances at me, asking without asking.
I nod. There’s no universe where I tell my stepmother no when I’ve just tried to take myself out of her life for good.
She slips in, closing the door softly behind her like she’s afraid it might shatter. She’s still in her jacket, hair pulled back in a messy bun, rosary wrapped so tight around her fingers her knuckles are white.
“Hola, mi amor,” she whispers.
“Mamá,” I croak. I haven’t called her that out loud in such a long time, college made everything more formal, more balanced.
Right now, all the armor is gone, and the word comes out naked.
She crosses the room in three steps and immediately cups my face with both hands, careful of the IV lines and the oxygen.
Her palms are warm and a little rough, and she smells like her gardenia lotion.
“Mi nino,” she says, voice breaking. “Ay, Dios. Mira nada más.”
“I’m—” I start, automatically reaching for “I’m fine” and finding it isn’t remotely true. My eyes sting. “I’m sorry.”
Her thumb brushes under my eye, catching a tear. “No,” she says sharply. “No pidas perdón por estar vivo. ?Me oyes?”
I nod, a helpless, miserable up-down.
She presses a kiss to my forehead and then to my bandaged wrist, very softly, like she’s blessing it. “You scared us,” she says, voice softening. “Mucho. Pero estoy tan agradecida que estás aquí. We can deal with the rest.”
I swallow around the lump in my throat.
“Dad?” I manage.
“In the hallway,” she says, expression twisting. “He… he wanted to give you space. He’s… a mess. Don’t let the suit fool you.”
I let out something that might technically qualify as a laugh. It comes out strained and wet. Miguel squeezes my hand. “I’m gonna give you and Mom a minute,” he says quietly. “But I’m not going far. Bathroom and bad coffee only.”
Panic flickers inside and my fingers tighten around his.