Chapter Thirty-Eight - Daniel
CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT
Daniel
HIS MOTHER’S CONDO smelled like lemon balm and books.
Daniel stood awkwardly in the doorway, hands shoved deep in his pockets, like maybe if he didn’t move, she wouldn’t see how ruined he was.
She pulled him into a warm, familiar hug. She felt small against him, but solid. Present. He didn’t deserve the comfort of it, but he let her hold him anyway.
“Sit,” she said, already walking toward the kitchen. “Tea?”
“Sure,” he murmured, throat dry.
The living room hadn’t changed in years. Plants on the windowsill, watercolor prints on the wall, a stack of novels beside her armchair. Her knitting basket overflowed in the corner, full of softness he felt like he had no right to be near.
She returned with two mugs and an arched brow. “You’re here unannounced and didn’t even bring me gossip?”
He tried for a smile. It came out twisted. “I needed to talk.”
She sat beside him, folding her legs up beneath her like she was still thirty. Comfortable in her skin. Comfortable in the life she’d built.
“Is it about Hannah?”
The name hit like a brick to the ribs. “Yeah.”
She didn’t look surprised. Just watched him with that same gentle, terrifying patience she’d always had. He’d once mistaken it for softness. Now he knew better. It was strength.
“She’s doing well,” he said, as if that mattered. As if it helped. “She’s… thriving.”
His mother nodded. “She always struck me as someone who would grow into herself.”
“She is.” His voice cracked. “She really is.”
A long silence settled between them.
Then, too fast, too loud, he blurted, “I fucked it up.”
His mother didn’t flinch.
“I cheated on her.”
Still, she said nothing.
Daniel couldn’t meet her eyes. He stared down into his mug, like he could hide in the steam, like it might scald away the filth on him. “It was—God—it was so fucking stupid. It meant nothing. She meant nothing.”
His mother blinked, slow. “Who?”
“A yoga teacher.”
Her face didn’t move, but he winced like she’d slapped him. “ Our yoga teacher. Hannah loved that class. She got me into it.” His breath hitched. “And I—” He shook his head, fingers tightening around the mug. “I took something important to her and I hurt her.”
Still, his mother said nothing. Just watched him fall apart.
“I ruined us,” he said, voice thin. “I ruined everything.”
There was a long beat. And then her voice, low and quiet. “Why?”
He didn’t want to answer. Didn’t want to hear himself say it out loud. But he owed her the truth. Owed someone.
“I don’t know,” he said, barely above a whisper. “She was young. Flirty. She made me feel like I still had… something.” He rubbed a hand over his face, rough. “Like I wasn’t fading.”
He let out a bitter laugh that sounded more like a choke.
“Jesus, listen to me. It’s pathetic. I sound like a cliché wrapped in a midlife crisis wrapped in a goddamn Lifetime movie.”
His mother didn’t argue. She didn’t try to soften it.
“It sounds human,” she said. “Ugly, but human.”
He nodded, shame crawling under his skin like fire ants. “I hated myself as soon as it happened. I still do.”
Silence. “You know,” his mother said, adjusting the mug in her hands, “I don’t hate getting older.”
Daniel blinked. He hadn’t expected that.
“Never have,” she went on, her voice steady. “You stop worrying about the wrong things. You get sharper. Quieter. I feel more like myself at sixty-three than I ever did at thirty.”
Daniel looked at her, finally. And all he could feel was the distance between them—not emotional, but existential. Like she had evolved into something he’d never be.
He wouldn’t get better with age.
His mother looked at him. She tilted her head, too perceptive. “You don’t have a problem with Hannah getting older, do you?”
The question landed with surgical precision.
“No,” he said immediately, too fast, too fierce. “God, no. She just keeps getting—” He broke off, breath catching. “Better.” It wasn’t a strong enough word.
There was something soft and sharp behind his mother’s gaze. “You don’t think you could get better?”
He didn’t want to say it out loud. He didn’t want to admit that he was already past his prime.
She reached over and gently smoothed the collar of his shirt like she used to when he was a boy, straightening him out when he didn’t even know he was unraveling.
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Daniel stared down at the worksheet in front of him.
"Infidelity Recovery: Taking Accountability"
The header glared up at him, the stark black font standing in sharp contrast against the crisp white paper.
Dr. Ellis had handed it to him at the end of their last session. No lecture. No explanation. Just a quiet, expectant look, like she already knew this would gut him.
It was worse than gutting him.
It was forcing him to sit in the wreckage he had made.
The worksheet was split into sections, each one demanding a deeper level of self-confrontation than the last.
Daniel exhaled slowly, dragging a hand down his face.
The answers weren’t complex. They weren’t some grand psychological puzzle.
They were ugly and simple.
Why did you cheat?
Because I was insecure. Because I needed to feel powerful. Because instead of confronting that, I destroyed the one person who had always made me feel like I was enough.
What stories did you tell yourself to justify it?
That it wasn’t real. That it didn’t mean anything. That Hannah would never leave me. That I could be a good husband and a selfish fucking idiot at the same time.
Daniel swallowed hard, his grip tightening around the pen.
What impact did it have on your partner?
His chest squeezed.
There weren’t enough lines on this page for that.
I humiliated her. I took every soft, vulnerable part of her and crushed it..
Daniel clenched his jaw, blinking hard against the burn behind his eyes.
It took her sense of safety, her trust in me, in us. I made her question every part of herself—her body, her desirability, her worth.
He had spent months tearing himself apart, trying to change, trying to fix the part of himself that had let this happen.
But some things couldn’t be fixed.
Some things you just had to live with.
His gaze flicked to the last question.
What do you truly regret—and what do you only regret because you got caught?
His stomach twisted.
For a long time, he hadn’t known the difference. The shame of being found out had tangled with the shame of his actions until they felt like the same thing.
But now?
Now, he knew.
I regret all of it. Even if she never found out, I would still regret it. I would still be here, knowing I had taken something perfect and tainted it.
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“She’s getting better every year,” he said, voice hoarse. “Wiser. More confident. More sure of what she wants, of who she is.” His throat ached. “She was always beautiful, but now? She’s— radiant .” He shook his head, exhaling sharply. “It’s not just about how she looks. It’s about how she carries herself. She’s more stunning at thirty than she was at twenty-five, and I know—” His voice caught. “I know she’s only going to keep getting better.”
The words sat between them.
Dr. Ellis studied him. “You see your wife growing more into herself every year, and yet, you’re terrified of aging.”
Daniel nodded.
She leaned forward slightly. “Why is that?”
His chest tightened.
Dr. Ellis kept her voice even. “When you look at yourself?” She tilted her head. “What do you see?”
Daniel’s pulse throbbed against his skull.
He opened his mouth. Closed it. Swallowed.
Dr. Ellis didn’t push. Just let him sit in it.
And then, finally, the words came, slow and fractured.
“I see… less.”
His own voice knocked the breath from his lungs.
“I see someone who peaked at twenty-eight and has been scrambling to stay relevant ever since,” he admitted, the truth clawing its way out of him. “I see someone who has to prove he’s still desirable, still young enough to be worth something.” His jaw clenched. “I see my father. Treading water. Panicking over every wrinkle, every sign that he’s getting older, because once he stops being young, once he stops being wanted—” His voice broke. “He doesn’t know who the fuck he is.”
Dr. Ellis exhaled. “And you?”
Daniel shut his eyes.
“I don’t know who I am either.”
The admission sat between them, thick and heavy.
Dr. Ellis nodded slowly. “So maybe that’s where the real work starts.”
Daniel’s hands curled into fists.
Because for the first time, he saw it. Really saw it.
Hannah wasn’t terrified of growing older.
She wasn’t afraid of losing value.
Because she knew—deep in her bones—that she had worth outside of how she looked. Outside of who wanted her.
And Daniel?
He had never been able to say the same.
His worth had been tied to youth. To attraction. To being desirable.
He was fucking pathetic.
He inhaled slowly, his chest tight.
“I don’t want to be my father,” he said, voice hoarse.
Dr. Ellis nodded. “So don’t be.”
It sounded so fucking simple.
Daniel exhaled, staring at the floor, his pulse slowing, steadying.
He had no idea who he was without the constant chase for relevance.
But for the first time, he was willing to find out.