Chapter 21 Tanner #2
By the fourth day, the notepad had three pages of entries.
Seth's shoulders would tense fifteen minutes before he admitted to a headache.
His answers came slower when the pain spiked—three seconds to respond instead of one, five seconds when it got bad.
I counted every pause, tracked every squint when light caught him wrong, wore a path in the carpet between the bedroom and the kitchen.
I developed a routine: check on Seth, make food, clean up, check on Seth again.
Rotate the ice packs—twenty minutes on his neck, twenty off, repeat.
I answered emails from his professors, explaining his absence even though they all knew.
I texted Hunter updates, short and factual because anything longer felt like too much.
I watched Seth sleep and told myself it was normal, that his brain needed rest, that the way his face went slack and pale was just exhaustion, not something worse.
At night, I lay next to him in the dark and listened to him breathe. Counted the seconds between inhales like I was measuring vital signs. Sometimes he’d reach for me in his sleep, curl against my side like a question, and I’d hold very still until his breathing evened out again.
By the fourth day, he was restless. Wanted to get up, walk around, do something besides lie in bed.
The doctor had cleared him for light activity, so I let him sit on the couch while I cleaned the kitchen, let him help fold laundry even though he moved slowly and had to stop twice to close his eyes against a wave of dizziness.
“This sucks,” he said, setting down a half-folded shirt.
“I know.”
“Not just the recovery. All of it.” He looked at me, and his eyes were clearer than they’d been in days—sharp, focused, seeing too much. “You’re exhausted. You’ve been running on fumes since the hospital, and don’t tell me you’re fine because I know what fine looks like on you, and this isn’t it.”
I folded a pair of his sweatpants, matched the seams with care. “I’m managing.”
“Managing isn’t the same as okay.”
“I know the difference.”
“Do you?” He pulled the sweatpants out of my hands, set them aside.
His eyes closed for a moment—pressure wave, probably—then refocused on me.
“Because from where I’m sitting, you’re doing exactly what you did with your dad.
Putting everything into taking care of someone else so you don’t have to think about how scared you are. ”
The words hit like a slap. I stood there, hands empty, and felt my ribs constrict around nothing.
“That’s not—” I stopped. Swallowed. Tried again. “I’m not doing that.”
“You haven’t left the apartment in four days. You’ve barely eaten. You check my pupils every six hours like you’re expecting to find something wrong. Tanner.” He said my name like it meant something, like it carried weight. “I’m going to be fine. But I need you to be fine too.”
“I will be. When you’re better.”
“I’m not going anywhere,” he said quietly. “I know you’re scared. I know this is bringing up stuff with your dad. But I’m right here, and I’m getting better. You can see that, right?”
I could. The evidence was in front of me—his steadier hands, his clearer eyes, the way he could track a conversation now without losing the thread. But knowing something logically and believing it were two different things.
“What happens when you’re better?” The question came out before I could stop it. “When you go back to—”
I cut myself off. Couldn’t say it. Couldn’t name the fear that had been sitting in my chest since the moment I saw him on that stretcher.
Seth’s expression softened. “Hey. We don’t have to figure that out right now. Right now, I just need you to breathe. Can you do that?”
I didn’t have an answer. The truth was too ugly to say aloud—that I didn’t know how to do anything else, that caretaking was the only mode I understood, that the thought of Seth getting hurt again made me want to lock both of us in this apartment forever and never let him near a football field again.
“I don’t know,” I said finally. Honestly. “I don’t know what else to do.”
“Let me help.” He reached for me, pulled me down onto the couch beside him. “Let me take care of you for once. Even if it’s just sitting here while you fall apart.”
“I can’t fall apart. You need me.”
“I need you to be okay more than I need you to be strong.” His hand found my face, tilted it toward him. “Do you hear me? I don’t need a caretaker. I need you. The real you, not the version that’s holding everything together with duct tape and willpower.”
The real me. I wasn’t sure I knew who that was anymore. The real me had gotten lost somewhere in the years of watching my father disappear, had been eroded piece by piece by the constant vigilance, the endless waiting for the next crisis. What was left felt hollow, scraped clean.
But Seth was looking at me like I was whole. Like he could see something I couldn’t.
“I’m scared,” I admitted. The words scraped my throat. “I’m terrified, all the time, that this is going to end the way it ended with him. That I’m going to watch you get worse and worse and there won’t be anything I can do except—”
I couldn’t finish. Seth pulled me against his chest, and I let him, let myself be held for the first time in days. He was warm and solid and alive, his heart beating steadily under my ear.
“I’m not going anywhere,” he said.
“You can’t promise that.”
“No. But I can promise to try.” His hand moved through my hair, gentle. “And I can promise that whatever happens, you won’t have to do it alone.”
I closed my eyes and let myself believe him. Just for a moment. Just long enough to breathe.
That night, I waited until Seth was asleep. His breathing had settled into the slow rhythm that meant he was really under, not just dozing. I slipped out of bed, padded to the bathroom, and closed the door behind me before turning on the light.
The face in the mirror looked like shit. Dark circles, pale skin, the hollowed-out cheeks I remembered from the caregiving years. I’d lost weight without noticing, the way I always did when stress ate me from the inside out.
I gripped the edge of the sink and watched my knuckles go white.
For four days, I’d held it together. Checked vitals, managed medications, and kept the apartment dark, quiet, and safe. I’d answered questions with a steady voice and said “I’m fine” until the words lost meaning. I’d been exactly what Seth needed me to be.
Now, alone in the bathroom at midnight, I let myself stop.
The first sob caught me off guard. It tore out of my chest like something breaking, loud in the silence, and I clamped a hand over my mouth to muffle it. Couldn’t wake Seth. Couldn’t let him hear this. He was supposed to be resting, healing, not worrying about me falling apart in the next room.
But the tears came anyway. All the fear I’d been swallowing for days, all the memories of hospital waiting rooms, doctors’ appointments, and watching someone I loved slowly become someone I didn’t recognize.
The terror that this was just the beginning, that Seth’s concussion was the first step on a path I’d already walked once, that I was going to spend the rest of my life watching people I loved get destroyed by this fucking sport.
I slid down the wall until I was sitting on the cold tile floor, knees pulled to my chest, shaking so hard my teeth chattered. The tears wouldn’t stop. Every time I thought I had control, another wave crashed through me, pulling me under.
Dad’s face in the hospital bed. The slack confusion when he didn’t recognize me. The funeral I’d helped plan, while everyone told me to be strong.
Seth waving from the stretcher. The too-long pause before he answered a question. The moments when his eyes went unfocused and I couldn’t tell if he was tired or if something was wrong.
I pressed my face against my knees and let myself cry. Really cry, the ugly kind, snot and tears and sounds that didn’t feel human. All the grief and fear and exhaustion I’d been carrying for years, for days, for longer than I could remember.
I don’t know how long I stayed there. Long enough for my legs to go numb, for my throat to go raw. Long enough for the worst of it to pass, leaving me empty and wrung out and strangely calm.
I pulled myself up. Splashed cold water on my face. Looked at my reflection and practiced the expression I’d show Seth in the morning.
Steady. Calm. Fine.
I turned off the light and went back to bed.
Seth shifted when I climbed in beside him, reaching for me without waking. I let him pull me close, let his warmth seep into my cold skin. His breathing stayed even. He hadn’t woken up.
Good. That was good.
I lay there in the dark, listening to his heartbeat, and told myself I could do this. That I was strong enough. That this time would be different.