Page 67 of Disarm
I stare at my hands. “It still feels like too much.”
“It sounds like you feel… guilty. For needing him.”
The word lands. “He already does so much. He’s my… he’s Miguel.” I scrub my palms over my face. “Sometimes I’m scared I’m gonna make him hate me. That one day he’s gonna realize I’m too much and just… walk.”
“And then what?” she asks softly. “What do you imagine happens if he leaves?”
I flinch.
“I don’t know,” I lie.
“Caleb,” she says, voice gentle but firm, the way she gets when she knows I’m dodging. “You do know. I’m not asking to hurt you. I’m asking so you don’t have to carry it alone.”
My throat burns and the words sit heavy on my tongue.
I imagine the empty bed. The silence. No soft “breathe with me,” no calloused fingers tracing circles on my arm until I fall asleep.
No more whispers of“Te amo, hermoso.”
I imagine… nothing. A world where nothing hurts because it doesn’t exist.
“I think…” I start, voice barely above a whisper. “I think if he left, I’d… stop trying.”
The room goes quieter somehow.
“Stop trying… what?” she asks carefully.
Staring at the pattern on the rug until it blurs from the tears. “To do this. Classes. Therapy. All of it.”
Her pen is still now. “Have you been thinking about hurting yourself?”
My heart skips.
There it is.
The question.
I sit with it for a moment, sorting through the static in my head.
Have I thought about… ending it? Not in a planning way. More in a what if it all just stopped kind of way? What if I didn’t wake up? What if I disappeared and everyone could go on without me dragging them down?
“Not… actively,” I say slowly. “Not like plans or… anything.” I force myself to meet her eyes. “Sometimes it’s just… passing thoughts. Like… maybe everyone would be better off if I wasn’t here.” My voice drops. “Especially him.”
Her expression doesn’t change. Just quiet concern. “How often do those thoughts come?”
Ouch.
“Only sometimes,” I say. “When I fuck up really bad. When I feel like I’m drowning. When my dad talks to me like I’m a project he’s failing at. When I see how hard Miguel’s working to keep me from… falling apart.”
“Have you ever tried to act on them?”
My stomach flips and I see the scar on my wrist, the one Miguel traced last night, and the bandages from years ago. The hunger in that dirty kitchen. The bottle of pills I counted once freshman year and then put back, shaking.
“No,” I say. “I thought about it a couple of times… before. But I haven’t. I wouldn’t.” I swallow hard. “I promised him.”
“The promise matters?”
“Yeah.” My chest tightens. “I can’t… do that to him. Or Celeste. I just… sometimes I wish I could stop existing without hurting anybody. Like just… fade out, you know?”
