Chapter 25 The Campaign
Colt
Three weeks in, I trade the hotel for an apartment in Logan Square.
The hotel had started to feel like a punishment.
The new place is close enough to be present.
Far enough to not be stalking. It's small, functional and nothing like home.
No yellow legal pad on the counter with three crossed-out sentences and an arrow drawn through them.
No rugby shirt thrown over the back of a chair where she stripped it off the night before.
Walls and a bed and a kitchen I barely use and a view of a brick wall that I stare at every morning while I plan how to earn back a woman who has every reason to tell me to go to hell.
I'm in therapy.
I tell Summer this directly. Third coffee date. Neutral ground. She sets the boundaries. I respect them like they're holy text.
"I'm seeing someone. A therapist. Dr. Ramos. He specializes in family manipulation and intimate partner violence." I give her the card. "You can call and verify. I want you to know this isn't performative."
She takes the card. Looks at it.
"He's helping me understand the patterns.
Not just the conspiracy. The stuff in me that made it work.
The need for my father's approval. How I transferred that need to Cheyenne.
The way I..." I stop. The words are new in my mouth.
Clumsy. "The way I took your love for granted because it was unconditional and gravitated toward attention that felt earned. "
"That's specific."
"Dr. Ramos doesn't let me generalize."
"I like Dr. Ramos."
Something flickers across her face. Quick. Her eyes softening for half a second before her shield goes back up. I saw it. She knows I saw it.
"This doesn't change anything."
"I'm not doing it to change anything. I'm doing it because I should have done it years ago."
"You should have."
She turns the cup in her hands. Picks at the edge of the lid.
"I keep waiting for the version of you that was easy. The one who didn't make me do this much work."
"I know."
"I have been angry at you for months. I don't know what to do with the part of me that wants to be relieved by what you just said."
I don't interrupt her.
"And I'm not putting my life on hold while I figure that out. I'm not standing at any finish line."
"I'm not asking you to wait. I'm asking you to watch. That's it. And if what you see is real, then we talk about what comes next. And if it's not, you walk away and I'll have deserved it."
Quiet. She picks up her coffee. Drinks. Sets it down.
"I can watch."
***
I go to Vibes. Openly. Friday night. Sit at the bar. Order bourbon.
Sam serves me. The man who let her fall and the man who caught her, measuring each other across four feet of polished wood.
He sets the bourbon in front of me. "On the house."
"You don't have to."
"Wasn't a question."
We look at each other. What passes between us isn't what I expected. Not aggression. Not territory. Something quieter.
"She's the best person I've ever met," Sam says.
"I know. I almost destroyed her."
"Almost."
One word. Almost. What that one word holds. She survived. The destruction was incomplete.
"Thank you. For what you did for her."
"I didn't do anything. She did it. I just gave her a room."
"It was everything."
"Yeah. It was."
I finish my bourbon. Leave cash. More than the drink costs.
"I'll be back. If that's okay."
He picks up my glass but doesn't move to wash it.
"It's a public venue." A beat. "But hear me.
I pulled her out of the water once, and I know how far under she went, which is further than she'll ever tell you.
I'm not going anywhere. Not at the holidays, not at three in the morning, not ever.
You don't get a vote on that." His eyes don't leave mine.
"And if you're ever the reason she's drowning again, I won't be measuring you across a bar. We clear?"
It's more than a friend's place to say. He says it anyway, and I have no standing to tell him so, because the place was his at three in the morning when it should have been mine.
"We're clear."
"Then yeah. You can come back."
I walk out into the Chicago night. The word stays with me. Almost.