Chapter 98 Arranging discomfort
We leave the bookstore slowly, like there’s something in the air we don’t want to disturb. Ryan has a small paper bag in his hand, lighter than it should be. I watched him inside, watched him pick four books with that quiet, almost boyish excitement, then stand there for too long, turning two of them over in his hands before he finally slid them back onto the shelf.
The instinct to intervene was a physical itch in my palms. I wanted to tell him to take all of them. I wanted to buy the whole store if it meant seeing that spark in his eyes stay lit for another hour. Why the restraint? Was it the weight? The energy of carrying them? Or was it a quiet, devastating calculation of time....how many pages can one man realistically promise to finish?
But I bit my tongue. I remembered the conversation at the cafe, the ghost of Angel Jimenez hovering between us. If I’m going to stop being absorbed by the illness, I have to stop hyper-fixating on his every move. I have to stop treating his choices like symptoms.
He’s a man who bought two books... that’s the story. Besides, I’m the healthy one, and I walked out with nothing but a pocketful of observations.
We eventually find ourselves at the water’s edge. The sailboats swaying in the gentle pull of the tide. We sit side by side on a weathered wooden bench, the salt air cooling as the light shifts.
The silence is peaceful for a while, until Ryan exhales, slow, like something inside him has been waiting for the right kind of quiet.
“I have this student,” he says. His voice is softer than usual. Like he’s choosing each word before letting it exist.
“I worry about her.”
I turn my head slightly, but I don’t interrupt. I’ve learned that with him, some things need space to unfold.
“My instincts keep telling me something’s wrong,” he continues, eyes still on the water. “At home, I mean.” He swallows lightly. There’s a tightness in his jaw now. Subtle, but there. “I made her talk to the school therapist,” he says. “That’s... that’s all I could do. Protocol. Pass it on to someone with more authority, more training, more.... distance.”
His fingers curl slightly against his knee.
“And now I’m not even there to follow up.”
That lands heavier than anything else. Not even there...The wind shifts again, brushing past us like it knows something we don’t.
“I keep thinking about her,” he admits, quieter now. “Wondering if she actually said anything. If she’s okay. If someone’s paying attention.”
A pause.
“And the others,” He lets out a small, humorless breath. “They’re probably just as confused about me. One day I’m there, the next I’m gone.” His voice dips, almost breaking, but not quite. “And there’s nothing I can do about any of it.”
That’s the part that settles into my chest and stays there.
Not the illness.
Not the uncertainty.
The helplessness.
I shift closer without thinking this time, our shoulders brushing, then staying that way. My hand finds his. His fingers are still cold. “You did something,” I say quietly. “You noticed. You acted. That matters more than you think.”
He doesn’t look at me. Just watches the water like it might offer him an answer I can’t.
“It doesn’t feel like enough,” he murmurs.
“It never does,” I admit.
Because that’s the truth no one likes to say out loud.
You can care deeply.
You can try.
You can do everything right.
And still walk away feeling like you left something unfinished behind. His grip tightens slightly in mine. “I hate that,” he says. “That feeling of being needed somewhere and not being able to show up.”
There’s something raw in it now. Not just about the student. About everything. I turn my head, study the side of his face, the way the light catches in his eyes, the quiet exhaustion threaded through something that still, somehow, refuses to dim.
“You showed up today,” I say softly.
That gets him. He glances at me then, just briefly, but it’s enough. Enough for me to see the flicker of something in his expression....something fragile, something fighting to hold its shape.
“For you,” he confesses. Simple and devastating. My throat tightens, but I don’t look away.
“For you too,” I answer.
After a beat of silence, I say “You could just tell them, Ryan," my voice is careful, testing the air. "Tell them you’re sick. That you might not be back for a while. It’s better than leaving them in the dark, let alone leaving them to guess."
He doesn’t turn. He keeps his eyes fixed on a white sail cutting through the distance. He shrugs, a slow, non-committal motion. "Maybe," he says softly. "We’ll see."
I know that ‘we’ll see’. It’s the phrase people use when the future feels like a door they aren't ready to knock on yet.
I check my watch. The sun is dipping lower, and the schedule in my head, the one I can't seem to switch off, pings. I reach into the backpack and pull out the pill organizer and a bottle of water. Ryan doesn't protest. He just watches my hands with a detached sort of curiosity, as if I’m performing a magic trick he’s seen a thousand times.
I hand them to him one by one. He gulps them down, the water sloshing in the bottle.There’s one he hates.
I know it now. I’ve learned it the way you learn someone’s tells, the slight hesitation, the almost imperceptible tightening around his mouth. He always leaves it for last.
So I leave it for last as well...
There’s something strangely human about that. About arranging discomfort. About deciding that if something is inevitable, it can at least be delayed. Managed. Positioned at the edge of the moment instead of the center.
We all do it.
With small things.
With harmless things.
With things that don’t matter.
Somewhere on this island, there’s probably someone finishing a packet of trail mix, picking around the raisins because they're their least favorite, or saving the chocolate morsels because they’re the prize. We either save the best for last to end on a high note, or we save the worst for last because we’re trying to delay the inevitable. With Ryan, it's a bit of both. We’re getting the poison out of the way so we can get back to the afternoon.
I take the empty bottle back and pack the meds away. I reach for the two books he bought, the brown paper crinkling, intending to tuck them into the bag to save him the weight. But Ryan’s hands land on them first.
I assume he’s asserting his independence, a small "I can carry them myself" gesture, but then he begins to unwrap the package. He reaches inside and pulls out a third item, a journal I didn't even see him grab. It’s leather-bound, the color of dark peat, with thick, creamy pages.