Page 228 of Disarm
I swallow. “I, uh… need the bathroom,” I mumble, already shoving back my chair. “Two minutes.”
“Take your time,” Maria says without looking up. “I’m about to rearrange the entire slide order in a fit of rage.”
The hallway outside is mercifully empty. I duck into the nearest stairwell, that weird echo-chamber space that always smells like dust and someone’s long-ago weed pen.
My hand shakes as I hit call.
He picks up on the second ring. “Caleb?”
“Hey,” I say. “I’m… at school. In a stairwell. What’s going on?”
There’s a tiny pause, paper rustling in the background. I can picture him at his desk, glasses on, surrounded by case files and legal pads.
“I got a call from the DA’s office this morning,” he says, going straight into lawyer tone. “About… him.”
I don’t need him to specify who. My body already knows. My shoulders go tight. His voice softens. “He died,” Dad says. “Last night. In his sleep, according to the report. Complications from… a number of health issues.”
The stairwell tilts. I sit down heavily on the cold concrete step because my knees suddenly don’t understand gravity.
“Oh,” I say.
It comes out very small.
“I wanted you to hear it from me,” he continues. “Not… see it somewhere or have it dropped into a random letter. They said they’d be in contact with you to let you know, since you were the main victim in the case, but I asked if I could tell you first.”
Main victim.
My brain feels… empty and loud at the same time. Like someone vacuumed it out and left a TV on static in the middle.
“Caleb?” Dad prompts gently. “Are you… there?”
“Yeah,” I say. “I’m here.”
“You’re allowed to feel however you feel about this,” he says, choosing his words carefully, like he practiced them. “Relieved, angry, indifferent… Whatever comes up, it’s valid.”
I laugh and it comes out all wrong—too sharp, too thin. “You have a script for this?” I ask. “Is there a module in law school called ‘How to Tell Your Kid Their Abuser Died’?”
He exhales. “I talked with a colleague,” he admits. “And to your stepmother. I wanted to… not make it worse.”
My chest squeezes. “Gold star,” I say. “You did fine.”
Silence hums between us for a second.
“If I’m being honest,” he says quietly, “my first reaction was… relief. That he can’t hurt anyone else. That there’s no chance of appeals or bullshit parole hearings. It’s… final.”
Final.
The word lands in my gut like a stone.
“Maybe,” he continues, “this will… help you move on. In some ways. Close a door, even if it doesn’t erase what happened.”
Fucking wow.
The phrase lands wrong. “Okay,done now, right? Trauma solved.”
“Right,” I say. My throat feels tight. “Move on.”
He hears it. I know he does. “That’s… not what I meant,” he says quickly. “I don’t expect you to just?—”
