Page 110 of Disarm
“Gravity is a bitch,” I say.
“Exactly.” His mouth twitches. “So, I’m calling in some reinforcements. That’s all this is. Not an indictment of you. Not a prelude to a breakup because fuck that. This is just me saying, ‘Hey, if I want to keep loving you the way you deserve for a long-ass time, preferably forever, maybe I should get some tools so I don’t crash and burn.’”
I let his words sink in, slow and sticky.
Support for him.
So he can keep being support for me.
“Are you…” I pick at a loose string on my joggers. “Are you sure I’m not just… too much?”
Miguel sighs, exasperated in that way that’s somehow still fond.
“Caleb.”
He waits until I drag my eyes up to his.
“You are a lot,” he says, smiling. “A lot of feelings. A lot of history. A lot of talent. A lot of love. A lot of hurt. You are not ‘too much.’ ‘Too much’ implies there’s some acceptable limit you’ve crossed. There isn’t one, at least not for me. But if I don’t take care of myself while taking care of you, I’m gonna start resenting things. And neither of us wants that.”
“You’re not… mad?” I ask softly. “At me? For how much I need?”
“Baby,” he says. “You needing me is the last thing I’m mad about. I like being needed by you. I love that you called me in Reno. I like that you text when you’re spiraling. That’s not the problem.”
“What is the problem, then?” I ask.
He hesitates, choosing his words.
“The problem,” he says slowly, “is that I’ve been acting like if I ever miss a call, you’ll disappear. Like, I can’t have a bad dayor a long shift or a dead phone, because if I do, the world ends. And that pressure? It’s not coming from you. It’s coming from inside my own head. From knowing you almost killed yourself once and being terrified of it ever happening again.”
My stomach flips. He said it out loud. The thing we’ve never ever vocalized.
“You—I never?—”
“I know, Caleb.” His voice goes soft. “You’ve never asked me to hold you together single-handedly. I volunteered for that job and then stapled myself to it.” He reaches over and laces our fingers, thumb brushing my knuckles. “So I’m trying to unlearn that a little. Still be there. Still answer. But also trust that if I fall asleep without checking my phone, you’re not going to vanish into the void.”
Heat stings behind my eyes.
“What if I do?” I whisper. “What if one day I just… can’t anymore?”
He squeezes my hand hard enough to anchor.
“Then we handle that together,” he says. “With more than just me and my two fucking hands.”
A tear escapes and slides hot down my cheek.
“I don’t want to break you,” I choke.
“You’re not going to,” he says. “Because I’m finally admitting I’m not indestructible.”
I let out a shuddery breath.
Silence settles between us, heavy but less sharp. After a minute, I manage, “So… what does this look like? Practically. You going to therapy and… what, I just… watch?”
Miguel snorts. “You can absolutely ‘supportive boyfriend walk me to the door and kiss my face off’ if you want. But really? Not much changes for you day-to-day, except maybe I’m a tiny bit less psycho when your battery dies.”
I wince. “I really am sorry about yesterday.”
He lifts our joined hands and kisses my knuckles. “Accepted. We’ll figure out some… communication rules. Like, I won’t drive to campus unless it’s been, I don’t know, twelve hours and nobody’s heard from you and Mom’s also worried. And you text me ‘alive’ when you get back from away games, even if it’s just that one word, and then crash.”
