“Alive,” I echo.
“That’s the bar, baby,” he says. “Not ‘thriving.’ Not ‘fixed.’ Just… alive.”
My chest aches.
“That sounds… doable,” I say quietly.
“Good.” He squeezes my hand again. “And I’m gonna ask Dr. Kaur if she’d be open to joint sessions. Only if you’re okay with it. I thought maybe, at some point, we could sit in there together and talk about how to handle… nights like the one before Reno. But that’s a later thing. Not now. Not a surprise.”
“If she does, she’ll be annoyingly good at it,” I mutter. “She already makes me cry once a week.”
Miguel smiles. “Yeah, that tracks.”
We fall quiet again, listening to the waves slam against the cliffs. The sunset bleeds out, leaving behind a bruised blue. “I’m scared,” I admit finally.
“Of what?” he asks.
“That you’ll walk into that counseling center and she’ll tell you everything that’s wrong with me and you’ll finally see how bad it actually is,” I say. “And then you’ll… I don’t know. Wake up.”
Miguel’s face softens in that devastating way.
“Caleb,” he says. “I already know how bad it actually is.”
That should hurt.
Somehow it doesn’t.
“I’ve seen you have panic attacks so bad you can’t move,” he continues quietly. “I’ve picked you up when you haven’t eatenin twelve hours. You’ve disassociated in my arms. I’ve held you while you cried about things that happened ten years ago, like they’re happening right now.”
He leans in, forehead almost touching mine.
“I may not know the worst of it,” he says. “But I’m still here. I’m not suddenly going to flinch because a therapist gives what I already see every single day a name.”
“Okay,” I whisper. “Okay.”
Miguel presses a kiss to my forehead, lingering there for a long second, like he can press reassurance straight through my skull.
“We’ll go slow,” he says. “We’ll talk through everything. No surprises. No ‘gotcha’ shit. Okay?”
“Okay,” I rasp.
We stay like that for a while, forehead to forehead, our joined hands resting on the console between us, listening to the ocean threaten the rocks and lose every time.
Miguel dropsme back at my dorm as the sky goes from navy to black.
“You coming over later?” he asks as I unbuckle.
“Yeah, after I shower and pretend to touch my homework,” I say. “Text me when you get home?”
“You know it.” He gives my hand one last squeeze. “Remember our word.”
“Alive,” I say.
His eyes soften. “Good boy.”
My ears go hot. “I hate you,” I mutter.
He grins. “Liar. Go inside before I embarrass you in front of your whole floor.”
