Chapter 26
ANTHONY
Two Months Later
Mark didn’t rush me when I sat down. He never did. He allowed me to reorient myself for our sessions. I’d never received that level of consideration from anyone else before.
“You mentioned last week that Elliot reminds you of someone,” he said carefully. “Who?”
My mouth went dry. “Myself,” I admitted. The word landed heavier than I expected. “When I was his age,” I continued, “I was already trained to disappear when I became inconvenient. To work for love. To earn it.”
Mark nodded. “And David?”
I let out a breath that shook. “David treated me the way my father did,” I said. “Approval that came and went. Affection that depended on obedience.” My jaw tightened. “I thought that was normal. I thought that was what being wanted felt like.”
“And Natalie?” he prompted.
“She broke the pattern,” I said softly. “She accepted me. Didn’t ask me to change. And because I’d never had that, I confused it with something bigger.”
My chest ached.
“So when she died,” I went on, “I latched onto the next version of that feeling. The next place I could belong.”
Mark didn’t interrupt.
“I didn’t fall for Elliot because he needed me,” I said, voice cracking. “I fell because he saw me. Because he trusted me the way I had once trusted Natalie.”
Shame flooded me.
“And I knew better,” I whispered. “I knew how dangerous that was. How much power I held. So I ran.”
Because staying would have meant confronting the truth.
“I wanted him,” I said. “Not as a responsibility. Not as a debt to Natalie. But as a man who finally felt chosen without conditions.” Tears slid down my face. “And the moment it got real.” I paused, catching my breath. “I did what I was taught to do.”
Mark leaned forward. “You left.”
“Yes,” I sobbed. “Because loving him meant risking becoming my father. Or David. Or someone who stayed too long and broke him, anyway.”
The room felt too small.
“So I told myself leaving would save him,” I said. “That distance would teach him how to stand.”
My voice broke completely. “But all it taught him was that love disappears the moment it starts to matter.”
Mark spoke gently. “And when he jumped?”
I folded in on myself. “That was my fault,” I said hoarsely. “Not because I wanted him hurt—but because I repeated the same abandonment that shaped me.”
I wiped my face, shaking.
“I didn’t know how to stay without destroying him,” I whispered. “So I destroyed him by leaving.”
Silence filled the room as I struggled to regulate my breathing.
Minutes passed before Mark said, “Anthony… recognizing the pattern doesn’t make you evil. It makes you responsible.”
I nodded, tears dripping from my chin. “I don’t want to love like a wound anymore,” I said. “I want to learn how to stay without consuming.”
“And Elliot?” Mark asked.
“I love him,” I said. “But I won’t go back until I can love him without fear that I’ll make the same mistakes again.”
Mark let the silence stretch after my confession. He always did that—gave my words room to settle, to stop echoing.
“You started volunteering,” he said eventually. “How’s that been?”
I scrubbed a hand over my face. “Hard. Humbling.” A weak huff of a laugh escaped me. “Terrifying, sometimes.”
“What’s terrifying about it?”
“That I can’t fix them,” I said immediately. “That I don’t get to swoop in and make it better.”
Mark nodded. “And how does that feel?”
“Like withdrawal,” I admitted. “Like my hands are tied and my chest is on fire.” I swallowed. “Like I finally understand how addicted I was to being needed.”
I stared at the carpet. “People call in pieces,” I continued. “Broken sentences. Breaths instead of words. And all I’m allowed to do is stay. I can’t promise them it’ll be okay. I can’t tell them what to do. I can’t make myself the reason they survive the night.”
My throat tightened. “I just… listen.”
“And?”
“And sometimes,” I said softly, “that’s enough.”
The words surprised me as they left my mouth.
“I’ve sat with people who were standing right on the edge,” I went on. “People who wanted the pain to stop more than they wanted to live. And the only thing that helped was knowing someone wasn’t afraid of the dark with them.”
My chest ached. “I think that’s what Elliot needed,” I said. “Not rescuing. Not distance. Just someone who could sit beside him without disappearing.”
Mark leaned forward. “What have you learned about yourself through this?”
I didn’t answer right away. I let the question sit with me until it felt like I found the right words.
“That I talk too much when I’m scared,” I said finally.
“That I mistake action for love. That I leave when I don’t trust myself to stay.
” I exhaled slowly. “But on the line,” I continued, “I’ve learned to ask instead of assume.
To let silence breathe. To trust that someone else’s strength doesn’t threaten mine. ”
My hands curled together. “I don’t say you’ll be okay anymore. Instead, I say I’m here. And I mean it.”
Mark’s voice was gentle. “How is that different from before?”
“Before,” I rasped, “I needed to be okay. I needed to believe I was doing the right thing, even if it hurt them. Now—” I shook my head. “Now I’m learning that love isn’t about easing my fear. It’s about holding space for theirs.”
A tear slipped down my cheek.
“I don’t want Elliot to need me to survive,” I said. “I want him to choose me because he’s alive. Because he wants to be.”
Mark was quiet for a moment. “And do you feel ready to try again?”
The question landed heavy—but it didn’t crush me.
“Yes,” I replied. Not rushed. Not desperate. “Not because I’m healed. But because I finally know where the line is.”
“What line?”
“The one between support and control,” I confirmed. “Between love and consumption.”
I swallowed.
“I know now that if I stay,” I went on, “I don’t get to disappear when it scares me. I don’t get to decide what he needs. I don’t get to make his pain about my fear.” My voice steadied. “I stay. I listen. I let him be whole—even when that means I’m not the center of his world.”
Mark smiled, just slightly. “And if it hurts?”
I nodded. “Then I hurt without running.”
The words felt terrifying.
They also felt true.
I left Mark’s office feeling flayed open. Not lighter. Not fixed. Just… exposed in a way that made every sound too sharp, every thought too loud.
The afternoon hung low and gray, the sky pressing down like a held breath. I stood on the pavement longer than necessary, hands shoved into my jacket pockets, grounding myself the way Mark had taught me. Feel the concrete. Name the cold. Breathe through it.
My phone sat heavy against my thigh. Silent. Not accusing. Just there.
Mark hadn’t told me I was better. He hadn’t offered absolution or a way back to how things were. But he had lifted the boundary. The one that said silence was the only safe option.
You’re allowed to speak to him again, he’d said. Carefully. Without rescuing. Without disappearing into him.
The relief didn’t come like a wave. It came like a lock easing. A slow, cautious release in my chest I hadn’t realized I was bracing against. I could say Elliot’s name again. I could ask how he was and not feel like I was doing something wrong just by wanting to know.
That scared me almost as much as it steadied me.
I stayed there a moment longer, breathing in the cold air, letting it burn my lungs clean. This wasn’t a victory. It wasn’t forgiveness. It was a narrow bridge—and I would have to cross it without turning it into a lifeline for either of us.
I didn’t take my phone out. But for the first time in weeks, I didn’t feel like I had to pretend I didn’t miss him. Hands shoved into my jacket pockets, grounding myself the way Mark had taught me.
Name five things you can see.
The cracked concrete. A leaf pinned to the curb. A woman tying her shoe. My own boots. The smear of cloud overhead.
Stay. That word followed me to the truck. I didn’t go home. I drove to the site instead.
The build was already alive when I pulled up. The clatter of tools, the low rumble of voices, the smell of sawdust and damp earth. Familiar. Honest. Work that made sense because it asked for your hands, not your heart.
Thomas was near the scaffolding, clipboard tucked under one arm, hard hat crooked like he’d put it on mid-thought. He looked up when he saw me, and his face shifted from serious to surprised.
“Therapy?” he asked.
I nodded once.
“That bad?”
I considered lying. Then remembered why I was here. “Yeah,” I said. “But… necessary.”
He studied me for a second, then jerked his head toward the materials stack. “Grab a pair of gloves. You can help me for a bit before I kick you off-site.”
I didn’t argue.
We worked side by side in companionable silence—measuring, lifting, aligning beams. The ache in my shoulders felt earned. Real. Each task pulled me out of my head and back into my body.
After a while, Thomas broke the quiet. “You gonna tell me what’s eating you,” he said, “or am I supposed to keep pretending this is just about construction?”
I exhaled through my nose. “I’m scared,” I admitted. “That I finally understand what I did wrong—and that knowing doesn’t change how much I want him.”
Thomas didn’t stop working. Didn’t look at me. “That’s not the same thing as being unsafe,” he said. “Wanting isn’t the problem. What you do with it is.”
I swallowed. “I ran when it got real,” I said. “More than once.”
“And now?”
I thought of Elliot’s face. Not the night he jumped. Not the night I left. But the quiet mornings. The way he softened when he felt held without being owned.
“Now I want to stay,” I said. “Without destroying him.”
Thomas finally looked at me then. “That’s growth,” he answered with a small smile on his lips. “Messy. Late. Painful as hell. But real.”
I nodded, throat tight.
After a beat, he added, “You still doing that crisis line thing tonight?”
My phone buzzed in my pocket like it had heard its cue.
6 p.m. Volunteer Shift Reminder.
“Yeah,” I said quietly.