Chapter 35 Confessions
Confessions
ADRIAN
Jordan didn’t say anything at first. He just sat there with his pen resting on his pad, giving me that patient, unnerving therapist stare that made me feel both seen and hunted.
“I don’t know where you want me to start,” I muttered.
“Where you feel the tightest,” he said. “Wherever your stomach drops.”
My stomach dropped immediately. Of course it did.
I exhaled through my nose. “I guess… I fucked up.”
“Most people do,” Jordan said mildly. “Keep going.”
But this wasn’t ‘most people.’ This was me, and Eli, and the slow-motion car crash I’d caused long before the actual crash.
I shifted in the chair, feeling too big for my skin. “I keep thinking about the hospital. About how he looked at me.”
Jordan didn’t fill the pause. He never did. It made the truth spill out faster. The pressure couldn’t escape otherwise.
“It wasn’t anger,” I said. “It wasn’t disappointment. Not the way you’d expect. It was fear. He was afraid of me.” Or maybe afraid for me?
Jordan’s eyebrows lifted slightly. “What made you think he was afraid?”
“He said I scared him.”
The words tasted like metal.
“He said watching me fall apart, watching me ignore everything about my health, overwork myself, refuse to rest, scared him. Because he’s seen it before. And he thought… he thought it would kill me eventually.”
Jordan nodded, not surprised. Not condemning either. “Did you believe him?”
I rubbed the back of my neck, suddenly aware of every knot along my spine. “Yeah. I did.”
“And why did that scare you?”
I hesitated. Not because I didn’t know the answer, but because saying it out loud felt like putting my hands on a live wire.
“Because I promised him I’d do better,” I said. “I promised I’d slow down. I promised I’d take care of myself so he didn’t have to worry.”
“And?”
“I didn’t.”
Jordan waited.
“I didn’t even try,” I admitted, voice breaking. “I didn’t even think about it. I just… kept going. Full speed. Like if I stopped, something awful would happen.”
“What awful thing?”
I laughed, a tired, humorless sound. “That I’d fail someone.”
Jordan leaned forward slightly. “Who were you trying to save, Adrian?”
I looked away. At the bookshelf, the window, anywhere but him. “Everyone. My patients. My staff. Eli. Myself, I guess, if you could call it that.”
“And what happens when you’re trying to save everyone?”
“I lose him,” I whispered.
Jordan didn’t correct me. Didn’t tell me I was catastrophizing, or projecting, or being dramatic.
“Tell me about the disappointment,” he said instead.
I swallowed hard. “He didn’t say the words. But I could feel it. Not because I messed up, but because I didn’t even see I was messing up. He just… lay there in that bed, recovering, and he had to watch me burn myself out for him. Again.”
“And what did that make you feel?”
“Like an idiot,” I said. “Like a selfish bastard. Like the guy who was supposed to protect him turned into the one hurting him.”
Jordan’s pen tapped softly. “Do you think you owe him something now?”
“I owe him everything,” I said instantly.
“No,” Jordan said quietly. “Not everything. But you owe him change.”
That truth landed with the explosive force of a grenade. I exhaled shakily. “I know.”
“What does change look like to you?”
And for the first time, maybe ever, I didn’t answer with a plan, a schedule, or a heroic declaration. Just guesses of what sounded right.
“I need to slow down,” I said. “For real this time. Not in theory. I need to go to my own appointments. Take medications. Sleep before I collapse. Let people help me instead of trying to be a damn fortress all the time.”
“Why?” Jordan asked.
I didn’t hesitate. My voice broke, but I didn’t hesitate. “Because he deserves a partner, not a martyr.”
Jordan’s expression softened. Not pity. Approval, maybe. Relief. “And what do you deserve?” he asked.
I opened my mouth… and stopped. Because the thing that rose up in my chest was quiet, unfamiliar, almost fragile.
“A life,” I said finally. “With him. One I don’t destroy from the inside out.”
Jordan nodded once. “Then let’s start there.”
I felt something inside me… unlatch.
I was not my father.
I was Eli’s husband, and it was time to start acting like it again.