Page 238 of Disarm
I hear a nineteen-year-old living in a delusional world watching his stepbrother yank at the long-sleeve shirt he insists on wearing in over a hundred-degree heat.
I swallow. “I hear… me setting myself up to be God,” I say. “Like I control every variable.”
“And do you?” he asks.
“No,” I say. “Obviously not.”
“Obviously?” he prompts.
I huff out a humorless laugh. “Intellectually,” I say. “Emotionally, it feels like I should. Like if I love him enough and watch him closely enough and answer every text within thirty seconds, I’ll catch it. Whatever ‘it’ is. And if I don’t, it’s on me.”
“That’s a heavy theology,” he says gently. “What would you say to Caleb if he told you the same thing about you?”
The answer’s immediate. “I’d tell him he’s full of shit,” I say. “That he can’t be in charge of keeping me alive. That’s literally why we have an electrician’s union and the county inspector and safety protocols and smoke alarms. So no one person has to see everything.”
“And yet,” narrowing his eyes, “you’re willing to put that burden on yourself for him.”
I stare at the soccer scarf because the alternative is looking at his very knowing face. “Yeah,” I say finally. “I am. Or I have been.”
He lets the silence sit for a second. The ticking of the clock on the wall gets louder.
“Our work,” he says, “is about letting you be a boyfriend, not a savior. That means trusting the net you’ve helped build. Trusting his skills. Trusting his word, unless his behavior starts contradicting it in obvious ways.”
“He says he’s okay when he’s not,” I say.
“Yes,” he says. “Sometimes. And he’s getting better at saying when he’s not. You’ve told me he labels his volume. He’s told you when he’s at a seven before. And you’ve responded. You’ve made plans. You’ve called in backup. That’s the net at work.”
I pick at the thread harder and it finally snaps.
“What if the net fails?” I ask. The words land heavy between us. “What if it’s not enough? What if everyone misses something at the same time?”
He doesn’t answer right away.
He never does with the hard ones.
“Then,” he says slowly, “it will be unbearable. And we will bear it. But it will not be your fault alone.”
The“we”makes something in my chest wobble. It’s stupid and small, but it helps.
“I’m not saying you shouldn’t pay attention,” he adds. “Or that you shouldn’t respond when he tells you he’s struggling. I’m saying you’re allowed to also… Go to work. Go to your own therapy. Play your video games and watch sports. Have a life that isn’t just perimeter duty.”
“Feels selfish,” I say.
“It’s necessary,” he counters. “Burned-out caretakers are not effective guardians. You’ve told me you want to build a life with him, not a bunker.”
I think about Caleb’s laugh when he’s actually happy, not just performing. The way he talks about maybe coaching kids someday if the NBA doesn’t work out. The way he looks in my kitchen, barefoot, making eggs badly. I think about the future wehalf-joke about, a bigger bed, maybe a cat, yelling at hypothetical children to stop licking the outlets.
I don’t want that life to be triage.
“What if I’m wrong?” I ask quietly. “What if I trust the net and something slips through anyway?”
“Then we deal with it when and if it happens,” he says. “But right now, today, the data says you are showing up. He is showing up. The net is working. No one is asking you to stand on that cliff edge alone with your arms out forever.”
I let that sink in.
I don’t entirely believe him.But I want to.
We spend the rest of the session talking about other things, my mom’s tendency to show up with Tupperware when she’s worried, my own weird almost-zap this week, and how scared it made Caleb when I told him. How, for a minute, the roles flipped, and he was the one fussing, his hands trembly on my wrist, asking if I was okay.
