Page 227 of Disarm

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“You’re safe,” I murmur. “I’ve got you.”

“Yeah,” he whispers. “I know. I’m just… tired.”

“Then sleep,” I say. “We can pause this weekend. Just you, me, the couch, and enough Netflix to rot our brains.”

“Deal,” he says, voice already fuzzing at the edges.

I lie there for a while after his breaths go deep and slow, listening to the fan whir and the occasional car hiss down the street outside. My muscles finally start to let go, the ache in my shoulders easing under his weight.

He told me it was a seven.He told me.

He promised to tell me if it got worse.

And he will, I tell myself.

He will.

FORTY-ONE

CALEB

The email hits in the middle of me pretending to care about a group project. We’re in one of the conference rooms off the library, the whiteboard stained with ghost equations, five of us hunched over laptops, the air thick with stress and stale coffee. Jason’s ranting about how nobody read the rubric and I’m staring at a graph that might as well be hieroglyphics.

My phone buzzes.

I’m being a responsible student. I’m engaged. I’m?—

It buzzes again.

The screen lights up with a notification.

Dad

Call me when you have a minute. It’s important.

My stomach does that drop-then-flip thing.

I shouldn’t open it. Not here. Not with four people who think my biggest problem is standard deviation. I open it anyway.

Dad

Please call me as soon as you can. Preferably somewhere private. It’s about your mother’s boyfriend.

The words go blurry for a second, like someone smeared my vision with a thumb.

“Caleb?” Jason snaps his fingers in front of my face. “You alive? We’re talking about who’s presenting the limitations section.”

“I can do it,” I say automatically. My voice sounds like it’s coming from the far end of the hallway. “The limitations. I’ve got it.”

“Cool,” he says, turning back to the whiteboard. “Just don’t roast us in front of the class.”

I nod like a bobblehead.

My phone buzzes again.

Dad

Can you talk now?

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