Chapter 21 Tanner
TANNER
I moved through the darkness like I’d trained for it, which I supposed I had.
Years of learning to navigate without turning on lights, without making noise, without disturbing someone whose brain couldn’t tolerate stimulation.
I knew the exact distance from the bathroom to the kitchen, how to open the refrigerator without letting the light spill into the hallway, which floorboards creaked, and which ones held my weight in silence.
Seth was sleeping. Finally sleeping, after that first endless night and two more days of waking every few hours in confusion, his eyes unfocused and frightened until he found my face. The doctor said that was normal. That his brain needed rest, that the fog would clear, that he’d be fine.
Fine.
I set the ibuprofen bottle on the counter and counted the pills.
Eighteen left. He could have two every six hours, which meant I needed to pick up more tomorrow.
I wrote it on the notebook I’d started keeping by the coffee maker—a list that grew longer every day.
Meds. Sunglasses in case he needs to go outside.
Replace ice packs in freezer. Help him email his professors.
The notebook was covered in my handwriting now, cramped and urgent. I’d written down everything the doctor said, everything the discharge papers recommended, every symptom to watch for, and every warning sign that meant we needed to go back to the hospital.
Increased confusion. Slurred speech. Seizures. One pupil larger than the other.
I checked Seth’s pupils three times a day, holding a penlight I’d bought at CVS up to his face while he blinked at me in tired confusion. He let me do it without complaint. Probably didn’t even understand why I needed to.
I rinsed my hands in the kitchen sink, cold water shocking against my skin.
Two-thirty in the morning. He’d taken his last dose at midnight, which meant I had until six to sleep, except I knew I wouldn’t.
The anxiety had settled into my bones like a low-grade fever, keeping me alert even when exhaustion dragged at my eyelids.
This was what I knew how to do. This was who I was.
I’d gotten good at it, once. Tracking medications and doctors’ appointments, managing symptoms and anticipating needs.
I’d spent years perfecting the rhythm of caretaking—the vigilance, the preparation, the constant assessment of whether today was a good day or a bad day.
Whether the person I loved was getting better or worse.
But I also knew how that story ended.
By morning, Seth was awake and asking for coffee.
“Just water,” I said, setting a glass on the nightstand. “Caffeine can make headaches worse.”
He made a face but didn’t argue. The light from the hallway cut a thin stripe across the carpet, carefully angled away from his eyes. I’d closed every blind in the apartment, kept the lights off except when absolutely necessary. The darkness made the space feel smaller, more intimate. Safer, maybe.
Or maybe just familiar.
“What time is it?” His voice was rough with sleep, and I watched him squint at the ceiling like he was trying to remember something.
“Around eight. How’s your head?”
“Still attached.” He shifted on the pillows, wincing. “Hurts less than yesterday.”
I made a note of that.
Day 3: reports decreased pain upon waking.
“You’re writing things down,” Seth observed.
“Just keeping track.” I closed the notebook, tucked it into my back pocket. “The doctor said to monitor your symptoms.”
“Tanner.” He reached for my hand, and I let him take it. His grip was warm but weaker than usual, and I tried not to catalog that the way I cataloged everything else. “I’m okay.”
“I know.”
“No, I mean—” He tugged gently until I sat on the edge of the bed. Up close, I could see the shadows under his eyes, the pallor beneath his tan. He looked exhausted in a way that sleep couldn’t fix. “I’m okay. You can stop holding your breath.”
I hadn’t realized I was. I let it out, felt my shoulders drop an inch.
“I’m not holding my breath.”
“You haven’t sat still in three days.” His thumb traced circles on my palm. “You’re barely sleeping. You’re barely eating. And every time I close my eyes, you look at me like you’re afraid I won’t open them again.”
The accuracy of it landed somewhere in my chest, sharp and uncomfortable. I looked away, focused on the sliver of light escaping through a gap in the blinds. I’d need to fix that. Add it to the list.
“I’m fine.”
“Bullshit.” He said it gently, without heat. “Talk to me.”
“There’s nothing to talk about.” I pulled my hand back, stood, put distance between us. “You need to rest. I’ll make you some toast.”
“I don’t want toast. I want you to stop pretending you’re not falling apart.”
The words hit harder than they should have. I froze in the doorway, my back to him, and tried to remember how to breathe normally. In through the nose, out through the mouth. Basic stuff. Stuff that shouldn’t require conscious effort.
“I’m handling it,” I said.
“I know you are. That’s what scares me.”
I left before he could say anything else.
The kitchen was dark, which was how I’d been keeping everything these days. I made toast by the glow of my phone screen, spread butter in careful strokes, and cut the slices into triangles because that’s how Dad used to like them.
Fuck.
I set the knife down and gripped the edge of the counter.
The wave of memory came without warning—Dad at the breakfast table, before everything went wrong, cutting toast into triangles for me while Mom made coffee.
He’d been teaching me about forces and vectors, how the diagonal cut was structurally superior. I couldn’t have been more than seven.
That was the thing about grief nobody told you.
It didn’t come in one big wave that eventually receded.
It came in hundreds of small waves, triggered by toast and penlight checks and the way Seth’s voice sounded when he was confused.
It came in the middle of the night when you were counting pills, in the morning when you were closing the blinds against the sun, in every quiet moment when your brain had nothing else to focus on.
I picked up the knife and finished cutting the toast.
When I brought it to Seth, he was sitting up against the headboard, watching me with an expression I couldn’t read.
“Thanks.” He took the plate, looked at the triangles, then at me. “You okay?”
“Fine.”
“You keep saying that.”
“Because I keep meaning it.” I sat in the chair I’d pulled next to the bed—close enough to reach him, far enough that I wasn’t hovering. Finding that balance had taken practice. “Eat.”
He ate. I watched him, tracking the way he chewed, the pauses between bites. Looking for signs of nausea, difficulty swallowing, anything that might indicate the concussion was worse than they’d thought.
“Stop,” Seth said quietly.
“Stop what?”
“Looking at me like I’m dying.”
The words landed like a punch. I flinched before I could stop myself, and I saw the moment Seth registered it—the way his face fell, the guilt flooding his features.
“Tanner. I didn’t mean—”
“I know.” I stood, collected his empty water glass. “I’ll get you more water.”
“Wait.” He caught my wrist. “Wait, please. I’m sorry. That was— Fuck, I didn’t think before I—”
“It’s fine.” The words came out automatic, rehearsed. How many times had I said them to Dad when he forgot my birthday, when he called me by the wrong name, when he looked at me like a stranger? “I know you didn’t mean it.”
“Tanner, look at me.”
I did. His eyes were clearer today than they’d been yesterday, more focused. The fog was lifting, bit by bit. He was getting better. He was going to be fine.
The problem was, I’d thought that about Dad too, in the early days.
When the memory lapses seemed minor, the mood swings seemed manageable, and everyone kept saying it would get better if we just waited long enough.
Before I learned that some things don’t get better. Some things just get worse more slowly.
“I’m sorry,” Seth said again. “For all of this. For making you take care of me. For putting you through this again.”
“You didn’t put me through anything.”
“I did.” His grip on my wrist tightened. “I saw your face when you walked into that room. I know what this is costing you.”
I wanted to tell him he was wrong. That I was fine, that this was different, that comparing a single concussion to years of CTE was ridiculous, and I knew that. Logically, I knew the statistics and the probabilities and the difference between a single trauma and a degenerative condition.
But logic didn’t live in the same part of my brain as the fear. And the fear was older, deeper, more entrenched than any rational thought I could construct against it.
“You’re not him,” I said instead. “This isn’t that.”
“I know. But that doesn’t mean it’s easy for you.” He released my wrist and let his hand fall to the blanket. “You’ve been taking care of me for three days. Who’s been taking care of you?”
Nobody. The answer was so obvious I didn’t bother saying it. Nobody had taken care of me in years, not really. I’d learned to take care of myself, to need less, to require nothing from anyone because requiring things meant being disappointed when they weren’t given.
“I don’t need to be taken care of,” I said. “I need you to get better.”
“I am getting better. Look.” He held up his hands, steady. “No shaking. Headache’s down to like a three. I can track your face without getting dizzy. The doctor said I’d be back to normal in a couple of weeks.”
A couple of weeks. Then what? Back to practice, back to games, back to the field where someone else could hit him, where the next concussion could be worse, where every snap was a chance for his brain to take another impact?
I didn’t say any of that. I just nodded and took his water glass to the kitchen and stood at the sink for a long time, staring at nothing.