Chapter 15 #2
I walk back toward the office, phone heavy in my pocket, the city moving around me like nothing just cracked open inside my chest. People are laughing. Someone’s yelling into a headset. A delivery truck backfires and I flinch like an idiot.
I’m in love.
Or… whatever version of love this is.
And the thing that scares me most is that part of me still wants to defend her.
Just this morning, she was up before me.
Pancakes—real ones, not the boxed shit. Fresh orange juice, squeezed by hand. A protein shake blended exactly how I like it, no chunks. My laundry folded. My shirts stacked the way I do it. She even matched my socks.
She takes care of me in ways Erin never did.
That’s the truth.
Erin loved me, but she didn’t mother me. She didn’t orbit me. She didn’t build her whole day around my habits, my needs, my rhythms.
Sage does.
And yet—
Erin never monitored my phone.
Never erased my messages.
Never listened to my voicemails at three in the morning.
Never sabotaged my friendships.
This is so fucked up.
I stop at a crosswalk, staring at the red hand blinking back at me, and feel the thought land fully formed for the first time:
I’m not scared of losing her.
I’m scared of what staying with her turns me into.
Why doesn’t she trust me?
That’s the part I can’t reconcile.
I’ve given her everything—time, honesty, access, reassurance. I stopped going out. I stopped seeing the guys as much. I started explaining myself for things that never needed explaining.
And still… this.
Tony’s birthday.
Fishing. The ocean. My people.
She knows how much that matters to me. She knows the water is where I breathe again. So why would she do this?
Unless—
My stomach tightens.
Unless this isn’t about the fishing trip at all.
Unless it’s about control.
Poker nights.
The bar after work.
The nights I didn’t tell her where I was because I just needed one fucking hour to exist without managing someone else’s emotions. And the extra sets I worked, crooning out the cracks she caused in my soul and letting them fly out into the starry night.
Is this how she gets even?
I exhale hard, dragging a hand through my hair.
I don’t know what I’m going to do.
I just know this—
If I confront her now, she’ll cry.
She’ll apologize.
She’ll cook, touch, seduce, promise. Or worse—she’ll flip the fuck out and cause a nuclear scene.
And I’ll drown. Burn on the match she strikes.
I don’t make it back to the office.
I get halfway down the block and my legs just… quit.
Like somebody unplugged me.
There’s a bench outside a bank — green metal, sun-bleached, one of those city benches no one ever really uses — and I sit before I even realize I’ve decided to.
Elbows on my knees.
Phone hanging loose in my hand.
Head down.
Breathing.
Just breathing.
In through my nose.
Out through my mouth.
Slow.
Careful.
Like if I don’t, something worse is going to happen.
Not a panic attack.
But if I’ve ever been close, this is it.
My chest feels hollow. Scooped out.
Like somebody reached inside and took something important with them.
Yesterday morning she was in my kitchen barefoot.
My T-shirt on her.
Hair pulled back.
Making eggs like it was the most normal thing in the world.
She kissed me on the mouth while the toast popped up.
Told me she loved me.
Soft.
Sleepy.
Real.
Last week she lit a candle on the deck and asked me to play guitar.
Just… play.
No agenda. No drama.
She sat there with her chin on her knees, listening like I was some kind of hero instead of just a guy with three chords and a half-decent voice.
And when we went to bed—
It wasn’t wild.
Wasn’t the usual firestorm.
It was slow.
Quiet.
The kind of sex you only have when you trust someone completely.
The kind that feels like you’re stitching yourselves together.
Like you’re choosing each other.
Over and over.
I remember thinking:
This is it. This is the good part. We finally found it.
Like maybe all the chaos before was just… growing pains.
Like maybe we’d crossed into something deeper.
Something real.
Something that could last.
And now I’m sitting on a public bench in the middle of Boston trying not to throw up because my girlfriend has been secretly logging into my voicemail like some paranoid private investigator.
Listening.
Deleting.
Curating my life.
My friends.
My world.
Like I’m a case file.
Not a person.
I press my palms into my eyes hard enough to see stars.
“Jesus,” I whisper.
It comes out broken.
Because this isn’t the fun kind of crazy.
This isn’t jealous-girlfriend, fight-then-kiss, dramatic movie shit.
This isn’t us slamming each other into walls and calling it passion.
This is quiet.
Calculated.
Middle-of-the-night behavior.
This is the kind of thing you hear about on Dateline.
The kind of thing people get restraining orders for.
And somehow—
Somehow—
It’s the same girl who folds my laundry and memorizes how I take my coffee.
That’s the part that kills me.
If she were just awful?
Easy.
If she were just mean?
Easy.
If she were just unstable all the time?
Easy.
But she’s not.
She’s both.
She’s the warmest person I’ve ever known.
And the one person quietly dismantling my life behind my back.
Two completely different women.
Same face.
Same voice.
Same hands.
How the fuck do you leave someone like that?
Which one are you even leaving?
A bus hisses to a stop in front of me.
People get off. People get on.
Nobody looks at me twice.
And I sit there bent over like some guy who just got dumped instead of some guy realizing his girlfriend might actually be watching him.
Monitoring him.
Controlling him.
My throat burns.
Because the truth is—
I’m not scared of her.
Not really.
I’m heartbroken.
Absolutely, bone-deep heartbroken.
Because I loved her.
Still love her.
God help me, I still love her.
After everything.
After the screaming and the lamps and the jealousy and the payphones and now this.
I’m still sitting here wishing this had a different explanation.
Some glitch.
Some mistake.
Some dumb coincidence.
Anything but what it is.
I laugh once.
Dry. Empty.
“Who are you?” I mutter.
And I don’t even know if I mean her or me.
Because what kind of guy stays after this?
What kind of guy sits on a bench grieving a woman who’s been spying on him?
What the hell is wrong with me?
I lean back, stare up at the sky between the buildings.
Feel the sun on my face.
Try to remember what my life felt like before her.
Before everything got this intense.
This consuming.
This… fused.
Soul-tied.
That’s what it feels like.
Like she’s threaded through me.
Like pulling away would rip something vital out with her.
Like leaving isn’t just a breakup.
It’s surgery.
No anesthesia.
My phone buzzes in my hand.
Just an email notification.
Nothing important.
But my heart still jumps.
And that’s when it hits me.
Not the spying.
Not the betrayal.
Not even the lying.
This.
This feeling.
This constant brace.
This waiting for the next thing.
This isn’t love.
Love isn’t supposed to feel like surveillance.
I sit there a little longer.
Head down.
Breathing.
Letting it hurt.
Because if I don’t let it hurt now, I’m never going to leave.
And for the first time—
Not angry.
Not dramatic.
Not impulsive.
Just quiet and certain—
I think:
I have to get out.
Not because I don’t love her.
Because I do.
And that’s exactly why this is going to destroy me if I stay.