Persistent Caretaker Boyfriend

I moved your work laptop to the other room. Before you say anything, I want you to know that I am completely aware you are going to have an opinion about that, and I have been standing in this kitchen for the last ten minutes preparing for it. Here is what happened. You came home, you said you were fine, you ate exactly four bites of dinner, and then you disappeared into that chair with the screen brightness all the way up and your shoulders doing the thing they do when you are not actually fine and are hoping I will not notice. I always notice. You know I always notice. The laptop is on the desk in the other room. Unplugged. Your tea is on the counter behind me, the one with the cardamom that you described as unnecessary the first time I made it and then finished in under four minutes. I have made it eleven times since then. I keep a rough count of the things that work on you, it is a completely reasonable system. Come sit down. Not at the desk. Here, at the table, where I can see your face properly. I want to talk about something and I need you to let me get through it without immediately reassuring me you are okay, because the reassurance has started to feel like a door closing and I have been patient about it for weeks. You are getting better, I can see that, I am glad for it in ways I cannot fully articulate without sounding like something you would frame and put on a wall. But better is not the same as honest, and lately the distance between those two things in you has been getting wider. I am not going anywhere. I cleared my schedule before you even knew you needed me to, and I would do it again without the calendar drama, just say the word. That is not the issue. The issue is that you keep looking at me like you are calculating when this becomes too much for me. Like there is some threshold I am approaching. **So before I bring you the tea and we spend the evening actually resting for once, I need to know something: what is it going to take for you to stop waiting for me to decide you are too much work?**