22. Robin #3
The apartment felt unnaturally quiet around us, the only sound was the occasional passing car outside.
Micah sat there, while I sat curled into the far corner of the couch trying to hold on to my anger with both hands.
The problem was that anger had always been easiest when the other person was clearly wrong.
Life would be so much simpler if Micah had turned out to be exactly like his father.
If he'd defended the church. If he'd dismissed the harm it caused.
If he'd walked into my apartment demanding forgiveness instead of looking like someone who hadn't slept in days.
Eventually he said barely above a whisper, "I am sorry, Robin."
I stared at him, because if he was going to sit in my living room and apologize, then I wanted him to look at what he'd done.
I wanted him to see exactly how badly he'd hurt me.
The pressure behind my eyes had been building for hours, and I could feel tears threatening again.
The effort of holding them back made my throat ache.
Absolutely not. I refused. I would not let him see me cry. I blinked hard and looked away before the tears could win.
When I finally glanced back, I froze. Micah was wiping at his own eyes.
The movement was quick, almost embarrassed, as though he hoped I hadn't noticed. Unfortunately for him, years of auditing had made me exceptionally good at spotting things people wanted hidden. He looked down at his hands afterward, but not before I caught the unmistakable shine of tears.
Seeing Micah cry just made everything sadder. Eventually he swallowed hard before finally looking up. "Can you forgive me?"
His voice shook.
The question settled between us.
I found myself genuinely considering it. A week ago, I would have laughed at the idea that Micah could ever do something requiring forgiveness in the first place, but here in the weight of everything I didn’t know what to say.
I sat across from him trying to imagine what forgiveness even looked like.
Did it mean pretending none of this happened?
Did it mean trusting him again?
Did it mean accepting that good people sometimes hurt each other?
The longer I thought about it, the more one uncomfortable truth kept surfacing. I still didn't know if I could trust my own judgment. That changed everything. If I couldn’t trust myself, how on earth could I trust anyone else, especially him?
And until that changed, forgiveness felt impossible.
"No."
The word left my mouth quietly.
Micah looked like I'd punched him.
I watched the answer land in real time. His shoulders dropped.
His jaw went slack. For a second he closed his eyes entirely, as though he needed a moment to absorb the impact before continuing.
When he opened them again, the hope that had been stubbornly hanging on since he arrived seemed noticeably dimmer.
Still, he nodded. Just accepting it.
"Okay."
Silence settled over the room again before he spoke.
"So, what does that mean?"
I stared at him. Part of me couldn't believe he was asking.
Another part knew exactly why. Neither of us had ever actually said the words out loud.
The relationship had simply existed. It had grown and expanded and worked its way into every corner of our lives so naturally that we'd never stopped to define it.
Now we were being forced to.
"What do you think it means?"
His face tightened. The answer had clearly occurred to him already. He just hadn't wanted to hear it from me. The realization made me feel cruel. Unfortunately, it didn't make me wrong.
"It means we're done." I took a shuttering breath but forced myself to keep going.
"I don't want to do this anymore. I don't want to wonder what you're not telling me.
I don't want to spend every conversation trying to figure out which parts are true and which parts are missing.
" The tears threatened again. I ignored them.
"It means I don't want to see you anymore. "
For a moment I thought he might argue or plead, but instead he simply sat there looking at me. The grief on his face was almost unbearable.
Slowly, he pushed himself to his feet.
It was as if words gathered behind his eyes, but he remained quiet instead.
His hand lifted slightly, and for one awful second, I thought he was going to reach for me.
The gesture died before it fully formed.
Instead, he scrubbed a hand across his face and let out a long breath.
The resignation in that sound hurt more than anger ever could.
"I'm sorry." His voice was rough. "I know that doesn't fix anything."
I looked away. Because if I kept looking at him, I was afraid I'd start second-guessing myself.
"And I know you probably don't want to hear it anymore." He swallowed. "But I am."
The apartment felt impossibly small. Micah glanced toward the door, then back at me. For a second neither of us moved.
"I'll leave you alone."
He headed for the door, and a tiny part of me ached to call him back. But it was just a small, desperate voice buried beneath the anger and disappointment and hurt.
But wanting something and trusting it were not the same thing.
So, I stayed where I was.
I listened to the door open and close.
The sound echoed through the apartment.
For several seconds afterward, I remained perfectly still, staring at the empty space he'd occupied only moments earlier.
Then the tears I'd spent the entire evening fighting finally won.
I folded in on myself and cried.