Page 7 of Disarm
I wait another ten minutes before giving up, but my mind won’t stop circling. The way he looked at me under the showerhead. The way he trembled when he said,“Don’t let me fall apart.”
He doesn’t understand that he already did. And that I picked up every piece.
You’re my mess.I meant that more than I’ve meant anything in my life.
But how long before I start breaking, too?
I grab my jacket, keys, wallet, and his sweater, telling myself I just need air.The truth?I’m heading toward campus before I even realize where I’m driving.
The roads are empty this late. The fog settled low, wrapping the world in ghost light. When I pull into the lot behind his dorm, my headlights catch on a row of wet bikes chained to a rack. I cut the engine and sit there, watching the windows.
Third floor. Second from the right. His room.
The light’s still on.
I check the time: 12:14 a.m. He should be asleep by now, but he’s probably lying there, staring at the ceiling, thinking too much.I think about calling.Then I remember the way he said I can’t stay and the way his voice cracked when he said it.
He’s not ready.
Maybe he never will be.
That’s the part that scares me most—not that someone will find out, not that my mom will change her mind—but that Caleb will never believe he deserves what I’m offering him. That he’ll keep punishing himself for the things he survived.
Whatever those things may be.
A door slams somewhere across the lot. I flinch and glance back at his window. The light goes off.
Finally.
Relief settles in slow, quiet waves.
I stay another ten minutes, just in case, before starting the truck again. The radio’s low, some late-night bolero station bleeding through static. It’s a song Mom used to hum when she cooked—“Sabor a mí.”
“So much of me is in you that I can’t see where I end and you begin.”
Yeah. That feels about right.
When I finally get home, I leave my phone on the counter, unread messages blinking from friends I don’t care to answer. I shower again, colder this time, hoping to wash the weight off.
It doesn’t work.
I crawl into bed, but the sheets feel too big without him here. I stare at the ceiling until my eyes burn.
Every time I close them, I see him under that water—skin flushed from the heat, eyes glassy, body trembling with exhaustion.
I told him I could handle him.
I didn’t say it wouldn’t cost me.
He thinks he’s the one falling apart.
But I know better.
Because somewhere between that first kiss and tonight’s goodbye, he became the thing that holds me together. And if he ever breaks again, I’m not sure I’ll survive if I can’t put him back together.
I don’t remember fallingasleep.
Just the sound of rain starting before dawn and the weight of everything I didn’t say pressing down on my chest.
