28. Neil
— ? —
Neil
I didn’t sleep.
I lay there in the dark, listening to Anika breathe, watching the shadows shift across the ceiling as the hours crawled by. Every time I closed my eyes, I saw it again. The truck. Her side of the car hanging over nothing.
Half a second of distraction, of old habits surfacing, of being the man I’d always been instead of the man I was trying to become.
Around three in the morning, I gave up on sleep entirely.
I slipped out of bed, careful not to wake her, and went to the desk by the window. The hotel had provided stationery, thick cream paper with the logo embossed in gold. I pulled out a pen and started writing.
It just poured out of me, all of it, every failure I could remember just like I did the first time I came begging for her to come back. I filled page after page. My hand cramped but I kept going.
At some point, the writing shifted. Stopped being a catalog of failures and became something else. Like an entry to my diary but properly said to Anika.
I don’t know how to be the man you deserve. I’ve been trying for weeks now, and I still don’t know. I still look at my phone without thinking. I still get lost in work. I still forget to ask the questions that matter.
But I’m going to learn.
Not for forgiveness. At this point, I don’t deserve it.
I’m going to learn because I want to become someone worthy of standing next to you. Someone our child can look at and be proud of. Someone who shows up, every day, even when it’s hard.
I almost killed you yesterday. Both of you. Because I couldn’t stop myself from glancing at a damn screen for half a second.
I don’t know how to make sure that never happens again. But I’m going to figure it out. I’m going to change. Not because you asked me to, but because I can’t live with being the man who put you at risk.
I love you. I’ve always loved you.
I signed it and folded the pages. Left them on her pillow.
Then I went to find coffee.
The hotel restaurant wasn’t open yet, but the concierge knew a café around the corner that served early. I walked through the empty streets of Amalfi as the sky turned pink, and I thought about what I’d written.
By the time I got back to the room, coffee in hand, the sun was fully up.
Anika was sitting on the edge of the bed. The pages were in her lap.
“That wasn’t for reading,” I said.
She looked up. Her eyes were red, but she wasn’t crying. Not anymore.
“Why leave it on my pillow?”
“I don’t know. I wasn’t thinking.”
“You were thinking. You wanted me to find it.”
I set down the coffee. Stood there in the doorway, feeling exposed in a way I’d never felt before.
“Maybe,” I admitted. “Maybe I wanted you to see it.”
“Why?”
“Because I don’t know how to say these things out loud. Because I’ve spent my whole life building walls instead of bridges. Because…” I trailed off. “Because I wanted you to know what’s in my head. Even the ugly parts.”
She stood and crossed the room. Put her hands on my face.
“This,” she said quietly. “This is what I needed.”
“What?”
“You not knowing. Trying anyway.” Her thumbs traced my cheekbones.
“You’ve spent two weeks proving you can show up.
You’ve bought me villas and first editions and pigments from Marrakech.
You’ve pulled weeds and sat still and fought for me.
But this…” She held up the pages. “This is you being honest about not having the answers. This is you admitting you’re scared and doing it anyway. ”
I leaned into her touch. Let myself feel it, the warmth of her hands, the steadiness of her gaze.
“I don’t know if I can be different,” I said. “Really different. I keep trying and I keep failing. I already apologized like this but-”
“Everyone keeps trying and keeps failing. That’s what growth looks like.”
“What if I fail again? What if I hurt you again? I’m so dumb, I can’t make myself learn.”
“Then we deal with it. Together.” She pressed her forehead to mine. “I’m not asking for perfection, Neil. I’m asking for presence. I’m asking you to keep trying even when it’s hard.”
“I’m not leaving,” I said.
“Yes, I know.”
“You should probably tell me to go. After yesterday. After what I almost did.”
“Probably.” She was quiet for a moment. “But I’m not going to.”
“Why not?”
“Because this is marriage. The real kind. The kind where you hurt each other and forgive each other and keep choosing each other anyway.” She pulled back, looked at me with those eyes that saw everything. “I’m choosing you, Neil. I’m choosing this. All of it, even the hard parts.”
“Even after yesterday?”
“Especially after yesterday. Because yesterday you showed me who you are when everything goes wrong. And who you are is a man who pulled me out of a car and fell to his knees and wrote pages of honesty because he didn’t know what else to do.”
I pulled her close. Held her the way I should have held her all those years when I was too busy, too distracted, too afraid of needing her this much.
“I love you,” I said into her hair.
She wrapped her arms around me. “I love you too.”
We stood there in the morning light, holding each other, and for the first time since the accident, I felt like maybe we were going to be okay.
We are not as perfect as I thought. We’re not even fixed. But okay.
That was enough.