I’m just so tired, you know? Like, I just finished setting out Dad’s meds for tomorrow, seven little cups on the kitchen counter, each with its own specific mix of pills and one with the liquid, and I stared at them for a good ten minutes, just... counting. Making sure. Because if I mess up, if I miss one (or God forbid, give him too much of one of them), then what? He’s already so frail, one wrong move and it’s a whole thing, an ambulance ride, another hospital stay, and I just can't. I really can't. My brother says I should just put him in a home, says it's not sustainable, and yeah, no shit, Sherlock, I know it's not sustainable. But he hates the idea, he always says he’d rather just… you know. Fade away at home. And who am I to deny him that? (Even though sometimes I think I'm fading away faster than he is, just from the sheer exhaustion of it all.) It’s this constant hum in the back of my brain, this low-level dread. Did I give him the blood thinner this morning? Or was it the diuretic? They’re both white, tiny, look exactly the same if you’re not paying attention. And I'm never *really* paying attention anymore, am I? I’m half-asleep, scrambling to get out the door for work, already thinking about the client presentation or the project deadline that’s looming like a big dark cloud. I mean, my job is demanding, it’s not like I can just take off whenever he has a little cough or a dizzy spell. And the cost of living here, forget about it. I have to work, I have to keep this going, keep paying for the apartment and his care and everything else. My friends are all doing their fancy trips to Tulum or whatever, and I'm over here color-coding pill boxes and praying I don't accidentally kill my own father. It's wild, dude. Just utterly bonkers. Sometimes I just wanna scream, just open the window and let it all out into the night, but what would that even accomplish? Probably just piss off the neighbors (and God knows I don't need *that* drama). So I just sit here, staring at the little plastic cups, willing myself to remember if I already set out the morning ones for him. (I did. I think.) It’s like playing Russian roulette with his life, except I'm the one holding the gun and the bullet is a tiny, innocuous-looking pill. And there's no one else to take the damn gun. Just me. Always me.