Page 243 of Disarm
Coward.
Or maybe merciful.
I don’t know anymore.
I scroll to my email app. Open a draft to Dr. K.
Subject: Update
Dr. K,
Got some news about my mom’s ex/the case. Volume is loud. Nightmares are back. Trying to use the plan but?—
I stop.
The words blur on the screen. This feels like standing on the edge of a cliff, yelling for help, and watching the wind snatch the sound away.
My hand drops.
I lock the phone and set it on the counter next to the stove. Face down. The safety plan crinkles in my other hand. For one dizzy second, I think about taping it back up, like that’ll undo the last half hour. Like if I can just get it perfectly straight on the fridge again, everything else will follow.
Instead, I fold it in half. Then in half again. Then I put it in the drawer with the takeout menus and mismatched chopsticks.
Out of sight, out of mind.
Yeah, right.
Time gets weird after that.I make coffee, only drinking half a mug before it goes cold. I put a frozen burrito in the microwave and watch the plate spin through the foggy glass until the beep makes my chest jump. I take one bite and it tastes like cardboard and regret. I throw the rest away and feel guilty because Miguel would tell me that’s still food, you asshole.
I sit on the couch with my laptop open to a stats practice exam. The words might as well be in Russian. I stare at the same question for twenty minutes and can’t remember what it says.
At some point, I end up on the floor in front of the couch, knees pulled up, forehead resting on them. The carpet leaves little imprints in my skin. My hands have that numb, pins-and-needles thing, like my circulation forgot how to circulate.
The thoughts keep looping.
He’s dead.
He got an ending. Ugly, sure. In prison. Alone. But done. Full stop.
I’m stuck in the after.
I promised myself once—I remember now—that I would never be like him. That I would never make a kid feel what I felt.
Another voice slides in, colder.
You already did.
You made Miguel into a parent when he was still a kid. You made your dad into a guilt sponge. You made Dr. K into a lifeguard.
You are the storm everyone else is sandbagging against.
Images flash behind my eyes.
Miguel in the kitchen, dancing badly to some stupid song, using a wooden spoon as a microphone, and making me laugh so hard I almost drop the eggs.
Miguel on the floor with a bunch of screws and instructions for a cheap IKEA dresser, swearing in two languages as he tries to make it not wobble.
Miguel in a parking lot, pointing at a big old tree and saying, “If we ever have a yard, I’m building you a treehouse. You never got one. You’re getting one now.”
