He studied me for a second, then jerked his head toward the materials stack. “Grab a pair of gloves. You can help me for a bit before I kick you off-site.”
I didn’t argue.
We worked side by side in companionable silence—measuring, lifting, aligning beams. The ache in my shoulders feltearned. Real. Each task pulled me out of my head and back into my body.
After a while, Thomas broke the quiet. “You gonna tell me what’s eating you,” he said, “or am I supposed to keep pretending this is just about construction?”
I exhaled through my nose. “I’m scared,” I admitted. “That I finally understand what I did wrong—and that knowing doesn’t change how much I want him.”
Thomas didn’t stop working. Didn’t look at me. “That’s not the same thing as being unsafe,” he said. “Wanting isn’t the problem. What you do with it is.”
I swallowed. “I ran when it got real,” I said. “More than once.”
“And now?”
I thought of Elliot’s face. Not the night he jumped. Not the night I left. But the quiet mornings. The way he softened when he felt held without being owned.
“Now I want to stay,” I said. “Without destroying him.”
Thomas finally looked at me then. “That’s growth,” he answered with a small smile on his lips. “Messy. Late. Painful as hell. But real.”
I nodded, throat tight.
After a beat, he added, “You still doing that crisis line thing tonight?”
My phone buzzed in my pocket like it had heard its cue.
6 p.m. Volunteer Shift Reminder.
“Yeah,” I said quietly.
“Good,” Thomas replied. “Don’t skip it just because today cracked you open.” He clapped a hand on my shoulder, solid and grounding. “You don’t have to bleed alone anymore, man.”
I left the site just as the last of the sun was disappearing behind low clouds, the wood and metal of the new build still smelling of sawdust and fresh paint. My hands ached, my back was tight, but my chest… my chest was lighter than it had been when I arrived.
My trip home lasted long enough for me to shower and change my clothes. I didn’t want the silence of the place to hit me yet. I drove to the crisis line center. The city streets were slick with rain, windshield wipers smearing the neon signs into streaked trails. Every turn made my fingers twitch against the wheel, every stoplight pulsing like my heart — the tension I’d carried for months, waiting to be set down somewhere safe.
I hung my jacket, sat in the small cubicle, and exhaled. Headset on. Pen poised over a notepad. The first call came in: a woman, voice tight, trembling.
“I… I can’t… I don’t know if I can get out of bed today…”
Her words hit me like they had hit me every night Elliot had been trapped in that darkness. I remembered the notes. The car. The accident. The emptiness in his eyes. My own hands shaking as I tried to save him before he almost died.
I leaned forward. “I hear you. I hear how heavy this is,” I said. My voice low, steady, carrying every ounce of control I could muster. “You’re not alone.”
The line went silent for a beat. I felt my stomach twist. Sweat pricked at my temples.Breathe. Don’t collapse into it. Be the safe place.
“I don’t… I can’t stop crying…” she cried finally, voice raw.
“I know,” I said. “And that’s okay. It’s okay to feel all of it. You don’t have to push it away. You don’t have to pretend you’re fine.”
Her sobs hit my chest like a fist, and I imagined my own heart cracking open with hers. I was sweating through my shirt, leaning against the edge of the desk to hold myself upright. I letmyself feel it. The guilt, the grief, the regret. Every person on the other end of this line was a reminder of why I’d failed before, and why I needed to get it right now.
She spoke again, smaller, fragile. “Why do I even keep going?”
“Because you want to live,” I spoke softly, almost to myself. “And because you deserve help. You’re allowed to want that. You’re allowed to ask for it.”
My words were met with silence, then a shaky breath. “Thank you.”
