“For the record,” Hayes said, sitting back again, “I still trust you with her. More than most people on the planet. I just needyouto start trusting you with her.”
I let out a rough laugh that didn’t feel like amusement at all.
He shrugged. “Go big or go home, man.”
I stared at him. I had come to my best friend expecting—maybe even wanting—to be told I was right to push her away. That I was too dangerous. Too broken. That he understood why I’d done it.
Instead, he’d handed the responsibility right back to me and called it what it was.
Fear. Not fate.
“Okay,” I said finally, the word tasting like gravel. “Say I don’t want to be this guy anymore.”
Hayes’s mouth curved, this quick, fierce grin that looked a little like relief.
For the first time since Clara closed the door behind her, the idea of doing something different didn’t feel like an insult. It felt like the smallest, scariest possible mercy.
I stared at the spot on the wall above his shoulder, at the weird dent in the drywall from the time we’d tried to hang a shelf after too many beers. My mouth was dry. My pulse wouldn’t settle.
“Okay,” I said again, slower this time. My hands flexed on my thighs. I forced the next words out before I could talk myself out of them.
“I have a plan to unfuck this.” I huffed out a breath. “My head. My leg. All of it.”
Hayes’s eyes softened in a way that made my chest hurt. “Good,” he said simply. “That’s a solid start.”
“This isn’t ...” I swallowed. “It isn’t just for her.”
His brows tipped up.
“I want her back,” I said, throat tight. “Fuck, I can’t breathe without her, but even if she never walks through that door again, I can’t keep living like this. I won’t. I’m tired of being at war with my own body. My own brain. I’m tired of being the guy who nukes everything good because he’s scared.”
Saying it out loud felt like peeling skin, but it was also the truth.
Hayes nodded once, like he’d been waiting to hear exactly that. “Then do it for you first,” he said. “The rest can come after.”
It didn’t feel like some big triumphant moment. There was no swelling music, no sudden lightness. It was more like standing at the bottom of another staircase, looking up, knowing exactly how far there was to fall if I screwed it up again.
Only this time, I wasn’t pretending I could do it alone. My best friend was there with me.
I blew out a slow breath, shoulders sagging. “Therapy is a start, but it’s not enough.”
Hayes tilted his head. “No?”
I shook my head. “No. I know exactly what I need to do if I want any shot at getting her back.”
