Chapter 23 #2
I have to force the words out. Harper deserves to know. If we’re going to be any sort of real family to her. Even if she’s gone… “So Mom was getting chemo and radiation and had to pick up a second job. I was twelve, and instead of being helpful, I was just more angry than ever.”
I wince at the memory. “God, I was such a little shit.”
“I literally can’t even imagine that,” Harper says gently. “Anyway, you were just a little kid.”
I shrug like it doesn’t still eat at me. “It’s all kind of blurry now. I used to steal a lot. Stupid shit—not anything valuable. Like rocks from the science lab. Candy bars from stores. The answer key to a test once.”
“What?”
I chuckle. “I got busted for that. They wanted to kick me out of school, but Mom went down there and bawled their asses out. Pulled off her skull cap to show her bald head from chemo and told them I was just having a really hard time at home.”
My vision blurs. I blink hard. Swallow. “Can you fucking believe that? She was fighting lung cancer, and all she could think about was what a hard time I was having.”
For a minute, I can’t talk. My throat’s too tight. My chest, too constricted.
“That was the turning point, I guess.” The words come out rough. “I decided I had to be better. For her. Since Dad was gone and she didn’t have anybody else. So I went home, opened a notebook, and started making a list of rules I was going to follow. No matter what. I would be a good son.”
I started with ten rules. Simple ones:
1. Don’t steal
2. Don’t lie to Mom
3. Get good grades
4. Clean your room
5. Do your homework
6. Be polite
7. Don’t disappoint Mom
8. Help around the house
9. Don’t cause problems
10. Do everything right the first time
By the end of the first month, I had fifty rules.
By the end of the first year, I had over two hundred.
Now I’m at... I’ve lost count. Nine hundred something. Maybe more.
I add new ones all the time, especially since Harper started living with us. Whenever something goes wrong, or I mess up, or I think of a new way to be better, I add a rule.
If I just follow enough rules, I can control everything. I can keep Mom safe. I can keep bad things from happening.
That’s what I told myself.
That’s what I still tell myself.
Even though I know—I’ve always known—it’s not really true.
“Shit,” Harper whispers. “That’s a hell of an origin story.”
“Yeah, well.” I swallow hard again but can’t get rid of the lump in my throat.
“It was about time I woke up and stopped being an asshole. During the chemo, Mom became friends with this feminist book club, and they helped her figure out how to sue my biological father for back child support settlement.”
“Oh, right. I do remember you saying she got the money from a settlement. Back child support was enough to buy a club downtown?”
I shrug. “I don’t know everything, but she mentioned once it was in the millions. I realized later he was probably buying off her silence at the same time. God, what a prick.” My jaw flexes again. “Mom must’ve been terrified I was going to turn out like him.”
“No.” Harper’s voice is firm. “Caleb. You were just a kid.”
I shrug again, but it doesn’t dislodge the weight. “I’m not sure I’ll ever forgive myself for how long it took me to grow the fuck up.”
Harper squeezes my thigh again. Her hand stays there this time. “We were supposed to have longer to be kids.”
And there’s something in her voice—a forlornness, a terrible shared understanding—that tells me she gets it.
Really gets it.
I want to ask her what cut her childhood short.
But she’s not done yet. “You ever talk to your dad now?”
I shake my head. “He’s tried a couple of times the last few years. Now that I’m almost grown. To check on his investment, no doubt.”
The bitterness is back, coating every word.
Harper exhales noisily. “It sucks that the ones who take off on us leave the biggest scars.”
I tilt my head her direction. Traffic’s picked up, so I can’t look at her properly. “Silas?”
Out of my periphery, I see her shrug, brow furrowed as she stares out the front window.
“He was... like, larger than life when I was a kid. My hero. The only one who could take Mom on when she was being, well, Mom. They mostly screamed at each other, and I’m pretty sure she had me to try to keep him when they were both teenagers from shit families, and I dunno.
I think Mom thought if she could just make a go of it with a kid of her own, then maybe. ..”
I steal a quick glance. She’s gazing out the window, biting a nail—something she never does at school. A habit she never lets anyone see. Except me sometimes.
“Maybe she thought it could fix all the broken in her,” I suggest quietly.
Harper’s head whips toward me. She nods. “Yeah. That. Was that your dad’s deal, too?”
I frown at the road.
Shit.
The realization hits like a semi-truck.
I think it’s my deal.
Like I can fix the broken in me if I just live out Mom’s dream. If I’m perfect enough. Controlled enough. If I achieve enough.
Fuck.
It’s not going to work. The rules. Everything I’ve been striving for. The control. The endless lists and goals and carefully maintained image.
What if I can’t fix shit? What if I’ve been lying to myself this whole time, pretending everything’s fine when really I’m just...
“I’m still really worried about Mom,” I blurt out. The words tumble over themselves.
“Five years is a really good benchmark, but there was only a sixty percent survival rate for five years for people who have her kind of cancer. Which means there’s a forty percent chance it’ll come back and—”
Sixty percent. Forty percent.
62% chance she’s fine. 38% chance I lose her.
No wait. That’s a different statistic. That’s—
My chest is tight. Too tight.
Count to four. Breathe in—one, two, three, four.
Can’t. Can’t get enough air.
Try again. One, two—no, that’s only two. Start over.
Check the mirrors. Have to check the mirrors.
Rearview. Can’t focus. Everything’s blurring.
Side mirror. Left. No—which one is left? My left or the car’s left?
Count backward from one hundred by sevens: 100, 93, 86—no, that’s wrong. Start over.
100, 93—what comes after 93?
I can’t—I can’t think. Can’t breathe. Can’t count. Can’t—
My hands are shaking on the wheel. Ten and two. Two and ten.
Everything’s breaking down. Every system. Every pattern. Every rule.
“Whoa. Holy shit. Breathe. Caleb! Breathe. Pull the car over.”
Harper’s hand is squeezing my leg. Trees passing by in a blur.
“Pull the car over,” Harper repeats, urgent now.
I signal—because even in a panic attack, I apparently can’t break protocol—and ease onto the shoulder. The moment the car’s in park, Harper’s unbuckling and turning toward me.
“Look at me.” Her hands frame my face. “Caleb. Look at me.”
I do. Her eyes are stormy gray, fierce and focused entirely on me.
“Breathe with me. In.” She inhales deeply. “Out.” She exhales.
In. Out. In. Out.
She’s giving me a pattern. A rhythm. Something to follow.
I try. Fail. Try again.
“There you go.” Her thumbs stroke my cheekbones. Four strokes on the left. Four on the right. Even. Balanced.
Does she know she’s doing that? Does she know I need the pattern?
“That’s it. Just breathe.”
In for four counts. Out for four counts.
She’s matching her breathing to mine. Or I’m matching mine to hers. I can’t tell anymore.
But it’s working.
The counting comes back. The patterns reassert. The systems reboot.
Four breaths. Eight breaths. Twelve breaths.
My lungs remember how to work. The vise around my chest loosens incrementally.
“I’m sorry,” I manage. “I don’t know why—”
Actually, I do know why.
Because I’ve been counting down to losing Harper the same way I counted down the days of Mom’s chemo treatments.
Because I’ve been trying to control this the same way I tried to control whether Mom lived or died.
Because no amount of rules or checking or patterns can stop the people I love from leaving.
And my brain is finally, catastrophically realizing that.
“Don’t you dare apologize.” Her voice is fierce. “You’ve been carrying this shit alone for how long?”
“Since I was twelve.”
“Fuck.” She shifts closer, throwing her arms around my neck and hugging me across the central panel. “That’s too fucking long, Caleb.”
A semi blows past, rocking the car slightly. Neither of us moves.
“You can’t control something like that,” Harper says quietly.
“You know that, right? No amount of rules or perfection or getting into Harvard is going to change what happened to your mom. Or what… might happen. I mean, I’m sure she’s going to keep being fine, but still. Babe. That’s not yours to carry.”
The truth of it sits heavy in the space between us.
“So what do I do?” My voice cracks. “If I can’t fix it, what the hell have I been doing all this time?”
“Surviving.” She says it simply. Like it’s obvious. “You’ve been surviving, Caleb. That’s not nothing.”
“But—”
“But nothing.” Her hands are still on my face, grounding me.
“You were twelve years old and terrified of losing your mom. So you made yourself into someone who could never fuck up, never lose control, and never give her one more thing to worry about. That’s not stupid.
That’s—” Her voice catches. “That’s actually kind of heroic, you fucking nerd. ”
A laugh surprises me. It’s watery and weak, but it’s real.
“There he is.” She smiles, soft and devastating. “There’s my Boy Scout.”
My.
The word lands like a physical thing in my chest.
We sit there on the shoulder of I-20, cars whipping past, the Texas sun beating down on the hood. Harper’s hands are still on my face. My heart is still racing but for different reasons now.
“I don’t want to take you there,” I finally say. The admission costs me everything. “To Z. I don’t want to watch you marry someone else. Even if it’s just paperwork. Even if it doesn’t mean anything. I—”
I can’t finish. Can’t say the rest.
I want you to choose me. I can’t stand the terror of losing someone else I love. I haven’t been this stomach-churning, breath-stolen, scared—panicked even—since we didn’t know if Mom was going to make it.
Harper’s eyes search mine. For a long moment, neither of us moves.
Then she leans back, breaking contact, and something in my chest cracks clean through. Her touch pulls away, and it hurts. God, it hurts.
“All I know is survival, too. We should go,” she says quietly. “Z’s waiting.”
I want to argue. Want to refuse. Want to throw the car in reverse and drive us anywhere but East Texas.
But Harper needs me.
Rule #762: When people you love need you, you show up.
I didn’t even come up with that one. It’s something Silas said once while installing a new carburetor. It was his life’s greatest regret, he said, not showing up when the people he loved needed him. Because, he said, showing up is the one thing that makes a man a real man.
So instead of pulling a U-turn and tying Harper to the seat until we land back safe and sound in Dallas, I check my mirrors—even now, even breaking apart, I check the fucking mirrors—and pull back onto the highway.
The silence that follows is different than before.
Heavier.
Like we’ve both said too much and not enough all at once.
Mile marker 248.
Two and a half hours to go.
Two hours and thirty minutes.
150 minutes.
9,000 seconds.
At our current speed—65 miles per hour—that’s 162.5 miles remaining.
162.5 miles equals 857,700 feet.
857,700 feet equals 10,292,400 inches.
Or in metric: 261.36 kilometers. 261,360 meters. 26,136,000 centimeters.
My brain won’t stop calculating. Won’t stop breaking it down into smaller and smaller increments, like if I can just measure it precisely enough—count every second, every mile, every inch between here and losing her—maybe I can slow it down.
Maybe I can stop it.
But I can’t.
The countdown continues regardless of how many ways I quantify it.
Three and a half hours until everything changes.
I tighten my grip on the wheel and try not to think about how my rules never accounted for this: what happens when the only thing you want is the one thing you can’t control?