“Feels like trying to remember the score in the middle of a bench-clearing brawl,” I mutter.
“Then keep checking the scoreboard.”
I let out a breath, shaky and long. “What’s my homework?”
“Three things,” she says. “Pause and name sensations. Write a letter to Alycia you won’t send today—everything you’re feeling. And third: decide what kind of man you want to be when this settles. Not for PR. For her. For yourself.”
“That’s… big.”
“It is. You don’t have to finish. Only start.”
I nod slowly. Becoming. Not ruined. The idea feels foreign.
“What are you taking from today?” she asks.
I look around my too-quiet apartment. The ringlight. The half-empty mugs. The faint echo of Alycia’s voice saying last night was worth everything.
“That I didn’t blow things up because I love her,” I say. “I blew things up because lying was killing us. That it’ll hurt no matter what, but at least this way we’re real. And my job now is to sit with the hurt instead of turning it into more destruction.”
The tightness in my chest shifts—less like rocks, more like bruised muscle.
“And,” I add quietly, “that I’m not sixteen anymore. I don’t have to earn what I want by tearing myself apart.”
A small smile touches her mouth. “That is enough for today.”
My throat tightens again. “What if I fall apart later?”
“You will,” she says. “And when you do, you’ll notice it. You’ll write. You’ll breathe. You’ll remember you’ve survived every feeling you’ve ever had. And if you need another session, we’ll schedule one.”
The panic flares, then settles into something low and steady. Manageable.
“Okay,” I breathe.
“Kyle,” she adds gently, “give today a chance to unfold without trying to direct every scene.”
A huff slips out. “Control freak.”
“Loving man learning a different way,” she says. “Talk soon.”
The call clicks off. My reflection staresback—red eyes, tight jaw, shoulders up like shields. Someone who’s been in a storm and is still standing.
I drop my head into my hands and inhale the way she taught me. Four in. Hold. Six out.
My chest still aches. My hands still tremble. The world is still spinning fast and loud.
But the truth is out. And for once, I’m not running from it.
I’m staying.
For her.
For me.
And when the knock finally comes—whoever it is, whatever it brings—I want to be the man who can open the door without flinching from his own heart.
Chapter Thirty-Eight
Kyle
