Page 270 of Disarm
“Okay,” I murmur to the dark. “Partner route. Not the martyr route.”
It feels weird on my tongue.
It also feels right.
If loving him means watching him fight his own brain for the rest of our lives, then I’m going to need more than stubbornness and guilt.
I’m going to need the net.
FORTY-SEVEN
CALEB
IOP feels like summer school for my nervous system. Fluorescent lights. Stackable chairs. A whiteboard that’s seen some shit. There’s a Keurig in the corner and a sad potted plant that looks how I feel.
“Hey there, Caleb,” Sam says. He’s our group therapist—late thirties, white guy, tattoo peeking out of his sleeve.
I nod and sink into my chair, the one on the far side of the circle where I can see the door and the clock. The plastic creaks under my weight. My wrist twinges when I adjust. The bandage is smaller now, just a strip across old scar tissue, but I still feel it like a neon sign: THIS IDIOT TRIED AGAIN.
We go around and do check-ins. Name, number, and one sentence about why you’re here or how your week is going.
“Jess, volume six, still not sleeping.”
“Ray, four, thinking less about drinking, more about… not drinking.”
“Tom, seven, trying not to punch my brother-in-law.”
When it’s my turn, twelve pairs of eyes land on me. Some are curious. Some are bored. One guy is clearly just here because court said so.
“Caleb,” I say. “Uh… five? IOP for… a recent suicide attempt, flashbacks, and general brain assholery.”
A couple people smirk at that. One girl gives me the “same” face.
Sam nods like I just told him I had toast for breakfast. “Thanks, Caleb,” he says. “Glad you’re here.”
Glad you’re here.
Every time someone says that, my stomach flips.
We start with distress tolerance.
Sam writes it on the board in big letters: DISTRESS TOLERANCE: SURVIVING THE WAVE WITHOUT MAKING IT BIGGER.
“Question,” I say, raising my hand. “What if the wave is just… the whole ocean?”
A couple of people laugh. One guy in the corner snorts and Sam gives me the therapist version of a smirk. “Then we start with a cup,” he says. “Small wave. One situation. One moment.”
He hands out worksheets like it’s ninth grade health class. Radical acceptance. TIPP skills. Grounding techniques that sound like bullshit until you’re lying in a hospital bed trying not to crawl out of your skin.
I write my name at the top of the paper: Caleb Burton.
“Pick a recent moment of high distress,” Sam says. “Not your worst ever. Something from the last week.”
Last week is hospital: beeping monitors, IV lines, Miguel’s weight by my bed, Dad’s broken voice. It’s all one long, smeared-together nightmare.
I land on something smaller. Last night, lying in my own bed again for the first time since the attempt, staring at the ceiling, the dark feeling like it had teeth.
I scribble:
