38. The Power of Forgiveness #2
He exhales—slow, shaky. “I didn’t know how to help you without disappointing you. Every time I got behind in school, I felt like I was failing us. Failing you. Failing Liam.”
“You weren’t failing anyone,” I say, and I mean it. “But I get why you felt that way. I should’ve seen it.”
He lets silence settle between us. Not a heavy one. A listening one. Then?—
“I’m sorry,” he says again, quieter this time. “For disappearing when I didn’t know what to do. For letting you carry things alone. For making you feel like I didn’t see you.”
I close my eyes. They burn a little. “I forgive you.”
It lands between us like something fragile but real. I feel him inhale sharply, like he wasn’t ready to hear it even though he asked for it.
“And I’m sorry too,” I add. “For the pressure. For the resentment I didn’t say out loud. For thinking you should magically know what I needed without actually telling you.”
“I forgive you too,” he says, immediate and certain.
Neither of us rushes into the next part. Forgiveness isn’t an instant reconstruction. It’s just the first brick placed back down after weeks of demolition.
“Can I ask you something?” I say.
“Anything.”
“Do you still want this? Us? The marriage we thought we were building?”
There’s no hesitation.
“Yes,” he says, firm. “But I don’t want to pretend we didn’t both mess up. Or act like love fixes everything without work.”
My chest loosens. “I don’t want to pretend either.”
He laughs softly—tired, but genuine. “Guess that means we’re starting over.”
“Not over,” I say. “Just…starting again.”
He’s quiet for a long moment. “What does that look like for us?”
Honestly, I don’t know. But for the first time in a long time, not knowing doesn’t terrify me.
“It looks like you telling me when things are too much,” I say. “And me not trying to hold the entire world together without you. And both of us saying what we need instead of assuming the other person can guess.”
He exhales slowly. “Yeah. I can do that.”
“And we don’t solve everything tonight,” I add. “We can’t. But we can stop hurting each other by trying to outrun the hard conversations.”
He huffs a breath—almost a laugh. “You really are the smart one between us.”
“I’m exhausted,” I say. “Not smart.”
“Both,” he counters. “Always both.”
Something warm — faint, but present — settles into my ribs. I didn’t realize how much I missed hearing him tease me gently.
There’s another pause. Then he says, “I miss you.”
It’s not desperate. Not apologetic. Just truthful.
“I miss you too.”
“Can I come home this weekend?” he asks. “Not to fix everything. Just…to be there. To talk in person.”
“Yeah,” I breathe. “Come home.”
Liam whimpers in his sleep behind me. I turn instinctively, adjusting the blanket around him. Reid hears it.
“How’s he doing today?”
“Better. Still clingy.”
“He knows when things are weird,” Reid murmurs. “He’s always been sensitive to us.”
The way he says us softens something in me I didn’t know was still clenched.
“We’ll figure it out,” I tell him quietly. “We’re not done.”
“No,” he agrees. “We’re nowhere close.”
Another pause, but this one feels different—settled, anchored.
“Get some rest, Ames,” he says gently. “You sound tired.”
“I am.”
“Me too. But…lighter.”
“Same.”
We end the call slowly, neither of us wanting to hang up, both of us knowing we need to. When the screen goes dark, I stand there for a long moment, letting the quiet fill back in.
Forgiveness doesn’t erase the exhaustion, or the stress, or the distance. It doesn’t solve the logistical mess of our schedules or the resentment we’ve stacked up. It doesn’t turn us into perfect partners. But it does something else. It gives us room to breathe again.
And breathing is the first step toward rebuilding anything worth saving. Forgiving someone isn’t a single decision—it’s a decision I keep making every few breaths. After the call ends, the apartment is quiet in that heavy, post-storm way. Not empty. Just settling.
I sit there with the phone still in my hand, replaying everything we said. No shouting. No defensiveness. No circling the same wound until we reopen it. Just… two people trying again. Two people who almost lost the thread of us and are now fumbling to pick it back up.
Liam’s toys are scattered across the living room, a map of chaos I know by heart. There’s a half-colored dinosaur page under the coffee table. One sock abandoned by the bathroom. His little world is intact, even when ours was shaking. The sight makes my throat tighten. I breathe through it. Slowly.
Forgiveness feels almost physical—like something unclenching in my chest. But right behind that easing is a softer ache, a reminder that nothing we said tonight erases the damage completely. It only gives us room to start cleaning it up.
I get up from the couch, stretch stiff muscles, and instinctively check Liam’s room. He’s sprawled sideways across the mattress, cheek pressed into his pillow, one hand curled near his mouth. Peaceful. Oblivious. Trusting that tomorrow will be better than today.
“I’m trying, baby,” I whisper, brushing a curl from his forehead. “We both are.”
Back in the hallway, my phone buzzes again. A long message—Reid is still talking even after we hung up.
Reid: I know I said a lot earlier, but I need to say this too. I don’t expect you to pretend nothing hurt. I just want the chance to show you I can do better. For you. For Liam. For us.
Another message follows before I finish reading.
Reid: And I’m not asking for blind faith. Just a little space to prove I mean it.
God. The version of him who used to show up outside my house with flowers after every teenage fight flashes through my mind. Only now he doesn’t bring flowers—he brings vulnerability. Honesty. Growth. I didn’t realize how much I missed that part of him.
I type slowly.
I’m not expecting perfection either. But I need us to be partners. Not two people constantly apologizing for drowning.
The typing bubble appears. Disappears. Appears again.
Reid: Then let’s stop drowning. Let’s learn to say “I can’t do this alone” before we hit the bottom.
I close my eyes. That’s always been our weakness—both of us trying so hard to be strong that we break in silence instead. I settle on the couch again, curling my legs under me. For the first time in weeks, the cushions feel soft instead of suffocating. I don’t feel alone on them. I feel… connected.
I think about the marriage handbook Mom once half-joked existed somewhere—a secret manual that explains how to make everything work. She always said, “There is no handbook. Just stubborn love and the guts to keep choosing each other.”
For a while, I thought we had lost the guts part. Now? Maybe we hadn’t lost it. Maybe it just got buried under adulthood and deadlines and diapers and fear. My phone buzzes once more.
Reid: I love you. Not the idea of you. Not the past you. You—right now. Even in the hard parts.
I let myself feel that. Fully. Without bracing for disappointment. It’s terrifying how much I still want him. Not just as my husband but as my friend—the person who knows every version of me and still reaches back. I respond:
I love you too. Today hurt, but tonight helps. We keep trying. Together.
After I hit send, something inside me loosens another inch—not relief exactly, but the first hint of safety.
I close my laptop on the untouched work I planned to finish tonight.
For once, I don’t force myself to push through exhaustion just to feel productive.
Instead, I dim the lights and sink into the quiet of the apartment.
This is what forgiveness feels like in real time: a shift so small it would be easy to miss, but unmistakable if you’re looking for it. It’s the breath before the first step. It’s the decision to reach for the hand that hurt you—because you believe it can also heal you.
It’s the awareness that love doesn’t fix everything… but without love, nothing gets fixed at all. A soft knock hits the doorframe behind me. Mom peeks in with a towel over her shoulder, face gentle.
“You two talk?” she asks.
I nod. “Yeah. And… it helped.”
She steps inside, sits next to me slowly. “Good,” she murmurs. “But remember—healing isn’t instant. Neither is forgiveness.”
“I know,” I say quietly. “But I want to move forward.”
Mom gives me a long look, equal parts proud and sad. “Then do it intentionally. Don’t rush because you’re afraid of losing him. Move forward because you believe you both deserve better than what the last few weeks were.”
I nod, her words sinking deeper than she probably intended. “We’re trying.”
“That’s marriage,” she says, brushing my arm. “Trying, even when you’re tired. Choosing, even when you’re scared.”
For the first time in days, I lean into her.
Not because I’m breaking but because I’m finally steady enough to accept comfort instead of resisting it.
When she goes to bed, I remain on the couch, letting the apartment settle around me.
The weight in my chest hasn’t vanished—it’s just not crushing me anymore.
My phone lights up again. A photo. Reid in his dorm room, sitting cross-legged on the bed, hair messy, eyes soft. Holding the little framed picture of us from the wedding: my head on his shoulder, his cheek pressed into my hair.
Reid: I’m going to make us okay. Not perfect. Just… okay. Together.
This time when I smile, it doesn’t hurt.
I turn off the lamp beside me, fold myself into the couch, and exhale—slow, steady.
The kind of breath that signals the end of something heavy and the cautious beginning of something lighter.
We’re not fixed. We’re not finished falling apart.
But tonight, for the first time in a long stretch of darkness, I feel a crack of quiet light. And I choose to keep walking toward it.