Hunter
Is there a set time limit that helps you get over someone you had a whirlwind romantic few weeks with? Because if there is, I haven’t reached it yet.
I still think about Charlie every day. The way he laughed at the snow leopards. The way his voice sounded when he begged me not to stop. The way he looked at me right before he told me we needed to heal separately. It all still hurts.
Dr. Middleton calls it limerence. After looking up what that word means, I don’t fully see it.
Sure, at first it probably was a textbook case—obsession, fixation, attachment.
Check. Check. Check. The intrusive thoughts, the strong need for him to return my feelings.
But that’s where it ends. I didn’t idolize Charlie.
I saw him. The real him. Scars, trauma, crooked smile and all.
Now, if I took that and laid it over my relationship with Robby… it is one hundred percent true. And I’ve come to see that in my many sessions with Dr. Middleton. He’s helped me face years of my bad relationship and come to terms with how unhealthy it was in just a few short months.
Today’s session starts like usual. I sit in the same chair, hands clasped between my knees. Dr. Middleton watches me the way he always does—calm, direct, no bullshit.
“How have you been sleeping?” he asks.
“Better,” I admit. “AA helps. My sponsor’s been good. Calls me every night to check in. Makes it harder to justify picking up a bottle.”
He nods, pleased. “That’s progress. Real progress. How many meetings this week?”
“Four. I’m not just going through the motions anymore. I’m actually listening.”
“Good.” He leans forward slightly. “Let’s talk about the night Robby died. You’ve been circling it for weeks. Today I want to go in.”
My stomach tightens. I’ve been avoiding this. But I nod anyway.
Dr. Middleton waits. He’s good at waiting.
I take a slow breath and start talking.
“We were fighting before the call came in. Robby had been cheating again. I found messages on his phone that morning. When I confronted him about it, he said he was done. That he was moving out when we got home. He had the whole thing planned, even told our landlord.” I pause, the memory coming back the clearest it’s been since that night.
“He told me that I was the problem in our relationship. That my drinking drove him to cheat. I told him he was full of shit because the drinking started after he started cheating. We were both pissed. When the alarm came for the warehouse fire, we were still yelling at each other in the truck on the way there.”
My voice cracks, and I swallow hard.
“We were the first truck to arrive. The protocol of our firehouse said we shouldn’t have even gone to the call while we were fighting. It also said we should have waited for backup.”
“So, what happened next?”
I can see it clearly now, and I have been lying to myself for months.
Robby always was a cocky bastard. “The building was unstable. But Robby… always had something to prove. He went in first. Told me to cover him. I should’ve called it off and stopped him.
But I was so fucking angry, and if he wanted to get himself killed, I decided I would let him. ”
Tears gather in my eyes, and I blink them away. This is the part I haven’t looked at since that night.
“When the other trucks arrived and started dumping water on the fire, Robby was already inside trying to be some sort of hero. An old lady had been outside the building rambling about a family member being inside. But it wasn’t a residential.
And all reports said the warehouse was empty.
If there was anyone inside, they were squatters.
Not that their lives matter less, it’s just not a confirmed person,” I explain, looking up at him.
He nods, so I continue, “When the captain got there, I went in to get Robby. We—we fought… a five-alarm fire was raging around us, and he tried to punch me before he tackled me to the ground. I scrambled to my feet, ready to drag him out of there when the beam fell. It hit him in the head and me across my shoulder and back. I don’t remember anything after that. ”
The room is quiet except for the ticking clock on the wall.
He lets the silence sit for a moment before speaking.
“So Robby announced he was leaving you, you were in the middle of a fight, and he made the reckless decision to enter an unstable building against protocol. You waited to follow him in until your Captain gave the go ahead, you two fought inside, and the beam fell during that fight. Is that accurate?”
I nod, throat tight.
My nightmares over the year since he’s been gone have told me different stories of that night. Each one paints me as the reason Robby is dead. But the actual memory of that night is a little more muddied.
“You’ve been carrying the belief that you let him die.
That you could have stopped him. But from what you just described, Robby was already making dangerous choices before you even entered the building.
His decision to go in first, while emotionally compromised and against protocol, was the primary factor. ”
I stare at my hands. “I still should’ve stopped him.”
And that’s the whole issue. I’m not sure he would have listened, but I should have done something.
“You were in an abusive, volatile relationship, Hunter. You were most likely exhausted, angry, and hurt. Expecting perfect judgment in that state isn’t fair to yourself. You didn’t cause the roof to collapse. You also didn’t force him inside. You tried to get him out.”
The words land differently this time. They feel like something close to the truth. And something eases inside my chest.
Dr. Middleton’s voice stays steady. “We’ll keep on working on this. But from where I’m sitting, Robby dying is on him. And I think you can release that guilt now. You have nothing to blame yourself for.”
I nod again, eyes stinging. For the first time since that night, it doesn’t feel like it was entirely my fault. It still hurts. But it feels like something I’m healing from. Like maybe it is no longer an open wound.
He lets the silence sit for a moment, then shifts forward in his chair.
“Let’s talk about Charlie.”
I tense immediately. I haven’t said much about him in these sessions—just the broad strokes of what happened that night. But Dr. Middleton has a way of circling back to the things I try to avoid.
“You have avoided talking about him for a few sessions,” he says. “You’ve said you’re in love with him.”
I swallow hard. “Yeah.”
“And how are you handling that now?”
I stare at my hands. “I’m… trying to give him space.
I haven’t texted him since before I started seeing you.
I’m trying to respect what he asked for.
But it’s hard. Really fucking hard. I miss him.
I think about him all the time. Sometimes I still want to show up at his place, even when I know I shouldn’t. ”
Dr. Middleton nods slowly, watching me.
“Obsession can feel a lot like love, especially when it’s tied to guilt and fear of abandonment,” he says.
“But from what you’ve described… the way you talk about him, the way he made you want to be better…
I think your feelings for Charlie might actually be genuine.
That doesn’t make them healthy right now.
But it does mean they’re worth examining, not just dismissing as limerence or fixation. ”
I look up at him, surprised.
“You think it’s real?”
“I think it could be,” he says carefully.
“But real love doesn’t look like showing up drunk at someone’s door or pinning them down when they’re not ready.
If your feelings for Charlie are genuine, then the best thing you can do for him—and for yourself—is to keep doing this work.
Get stable. Stay sober. Learn how to love without possession or control. ”
He leans forward slightly.
“You’ve made real progress in a short time, Hunter. Use those feelings as motivation to keep getting better. If it’s meant to be, he’ll still be there when you’re ready. And if he’s not…you’ll still be a healthier version of yourself.”
When I leave his office, I feel lighter than I have in a year, maybe longer.
The air outside has that first bite of fall to it.
Leaves crunch under my boots as I walk, gold and red scattered across the sidewalk like someone spilled paint.
For the first time in weeks, my head feels…
quieter. Not silent. Robby’s still there, but he’s not screaming anymore.
He’s just a low hum in the background, easy to ignore.
I take the long way home, letting the cool air clear the last fog from my brain. I’m thinking about texting Charlie—not tonight, but soon. Something that doesn’t demand anything from him. Just…I’m trying, and I miss him.
Then I see it.
An art gallery. The big windows are lit up, and inside, hanging on the white walls, are paintings…all featuring…me in some way.
I stop dead in the middle of the sidewalk. My breath catches so hard it hurts.
There are at least two dozen pieces. Charcoal sketches. Oil paintings. Watercolors. Some small and intimate, some large and raw. All of me.
I push open the door before I can think better of it. The bell above it jingles softly.
The woman behind the desk looks up and smiles politely, then her expression shifts as she really sees me. Recognition flickers across her face.
“You’re him,” she says quietly, almost reverent. “The man in the paintings.”
I can’t speak. I just walk slowly through the gallery, eyes moving from piece to piece like a starving man at a feast.
Charlie saw all of it. The good. The ugly. The broken. He saw me. Really saw me. Even from that very first meeting in group.
My eyes sting. I have to blink hard to keep it together.
The gallery owner comes to stand beside me, arms loosely crossed.
“He poured his heart into these,” she says gently. “You can feel it in every stroke. Whoever this man is…” she pauses and nods at the pictures of me. “He was loved very deeply.”
I swallow past the lump in my throat.
“Yeah,” I whisper, voice rough. “He was.”
She gives me a small, understanding smile and steps away to give me space.
I stand there for a long time, surrounded by every version of myself Charlie ever saw. The man I was the first time he saw me. The man I failed to be. The man I’m still trying to become. All of it.
I need to see him.