Miguel watches me chew, then asks, “Okay. Now, what did he actually say?”
I glare at him. “I hate when you and Dr. Kaur tag team me mentally.”
He just waits.
“He said he’s struggling, Miggy,” I mutter. “That he doesn’t agree. That he’s worried about the… tangled dynamics. But he also said he doesn’t want to lose me. That he wants to learn. That he wants to listen to you. That he’s proud of me for telling him.”
“Right,” Miguel says. “So where on the spectrum between ‘trying his best’ and ‘planning his disownment speech’ does that actually land?”
I stab a piece of egg like it personally offended me. “Logically?” I admit. “Closer to ‘trying.’ Emotionally? Fifty-fifty.”
“Okay,” he says. “Logic can have a vote without completely outvoting feelings. But that’s where planning comes in. We can’t control what he does. What we can control is what we’re willing to walk into.”
I sip my coffee. My hands are shaking just a little. “What does ‘planning’ look like?” I ask. “Besides me drafting a will.”
He reaches behind him, grabs his phone, and taps the Notes app. “We make a list,” he says. “You love lists.”
“I love grocery lists and playlists,” I protest. “Not ‘how to survive being emotionally vivisected by my father’ lists.”
“Same principle,” he says, setting the phone between us on the counter. The blank note stares up at me, cursor blinking. “We’ll break it down. Questions we’re willing to answer. Questions we’re not. Red flags for ‘we’re done for the day.’ Stuff we want from him. Stuff we absolutely won’t tolerate.”
My heart starts hammering faster. It feels like building a bomb shelter and inviting the bomb in anyway.
“Hey,” Miguel says softly, noticing. His hand finds my knee under the counter, thumb rubbing slow circles. “We’re just brainstorming. Nothing we put here obligates you to do anything. We’re giving your brain something concrete to look at instead of letting it play horror movies on loop.”
I stare at the note. The blinking cursor feels like it’s judging me.
“Fine,” I say, dragging a breath in. “Rule number one: we don’t take the call if I’m already hanging by a thread. Like, no calling him right after a panic attack or a terrible practice or… whatever.”
Miguel types it out:
1. Don’t schedule the talk on a day when Caleb is already emotionally tapped out.
“Good,” he says. “Rule two: we pick a time when we can both be in the same place. No split-screen chaos. No you in your dorm and me in the truck.”
My shoulders drop a fraction. “Yeah,” I say. “I want to be… near you. Physical proximity is my favorite coping skill.”
He smirks and types:
2. Take the call together, in person, at the condo.
“Okay,” he says. “Now, questions we’re willing to answer. Stuff we’re okay talking about, even if it’s uncomfortable.”
The idea of answering questions about us makes me want to disappear into the floor. But if I don’t think it through now, my brain’s going to do it alone later and it’ll be worse.
I push my plate away and lean on my elbows, staring at the screen. “I can talk about how long I’ve had feelings,” I say slowly. “I already kind of did. He knows it’s not just… sudden.”
Miguel nods. “We can answer stuff like, ‘How did this start?’ without giving him every sexual detail he’s trying not to imagine.”
I grimace. “God, please.”
He types:
Okay to answer:
– How long we’ve had feelings
– How it shifted from brothers to something else
