#ets

The time at the end of the year leading into the beginning of the next is always strange, simply not passing in the usual way. Everything is just…weird. Work is slow yet somehow quick in a way, the days too short and the nights cold and long. 

Justine barely talks to you, and you both don’t get each other anything for Christmas, but you spend as much time with her kids as possible during their winter break from school and daycare. Lazy cuddles on the couch while letting them all have way too much screentime, bundled-up walks outside with Molly, tomato soup and grilled cheese lunches, a wrapping-paper-disaster house. It’s important to you that each of them individually remember how much you love them.

Not that gifts buy love, but the current state of the house shows how much they’re loved, anyway; there are toys literally all over the place, almost in every single room.

Your own bedroom is a mess, too. You’ve got just about all of your belongings packed up in boxes that are just sitting around awaiting move-in day. After you come back from Virginia, Sy will use his pickup to help you move your larger pieces of furniture, and everything else can fit in your own car. You anticipate having to only make two trips back and forth from Justine’s to your new apartment to get everything entirely cleared out. 

You can’t believe it’s almost time. 

You and Sy spend New Year’s Eve with Amelia and Johnny at their house. They don’t throw a party, so the night is spent with just the four of you in the living room lounging around. On the couch, Amelia sits shoulder-to-shoulder next to you while showing you dozens of pictures she’s saved on her phone, all of wedding stuff.

She’s made an Autumn Wedding aesthetic board on Pinterest that has literally every type of wedding-related thing on it: table ideas, color schemes, wedding dress and hair ideas, bridesmaids dresses and hair ideas, decorations, cake ideas, and more. 

“You’ve been busy,” you say. 

“I’m just excited,” she tells you, and her happiness is so evident that you can’t stop smiling. 

“Soo…Big wedding? Small wedding?”

Amy puts her hand out and tilts it side to side. “In the middle.”

“And you’re thinkin’ next fall?”

She nods. “Yup. But Johnny says we have to look at the NFL schedule first so we don’t get married on a day the Falcons play.”

“Oh, good grief,” you say without any real bite.

Maybe Amelia will ask you to be a bridesmaid, maybe she won’t. If she does, though, that would be amazing. You’d love to be there to support her. Your imagination gets carried away at the prospect of being in her wedding, then, as your thoughts often do, they wander–to you, instead of wearing a bridesmaid dress, in a dress of white.

__________

The morning after New Year’s Day is freezing, the cold mountain air unforgiving as you and Sy load up the car with travel bags and presents. You’re going to Virginia.

He’s acquired a new vehicle somehow–a used sedan he’ll flip for profit sometime in the future–and you don’t even ask where it came from. You’ve gotten used to random cars and trucks showing up in his garage on any given day.

You’ve also gotten used to car-hunting, and you’ve begun stalling. Sy wants you to choose a brand-new car–like the models that literally just came out–and you just…can’t. You won’t. There is literally something inside of you that physically repels even the idea of driving a brand-new, never-had-another-owner car. You’re uncomfortable enough to put the idea aside entirely, hoping to sway Sy sometime in the future buying something more affordable. 

“There are safer options,” he’d said, and yeah, that’s true. And those options don’t have to cost over forty-thousand fucking dollars.

It’s cozy and warm in the car as Sy starts driving down his long lane. You know that if it were up to him, he’d drive the entire trip himself, but you convince him to let you drive the second-half because while the first part will consist of long interstates and highways, the second half will be windy and hilly roads that you know like the back of your hand. You decide to switch places somewhere in North Carolina.

It’s early, so there’s no real conversation between you and Sy as he hits the road, just the soft radio in the background. You both sporadically drink sips of coffee from your thermoses in the center console and wait for the caffeine to kick in. With heated air filling the cabin, it’s comfortable.

You spend long minutes simply watching the bare trees lining the interstate. After that, your gaze switches to the cars in front of you–hardly any–and then you finally settle on watching Sy himself. He’s focused on the road ahead. Eyebrows scrunched together, a slight frown, a serious expression–he’s in the zone. You begin to alternate between playing on your phone and then repeating the same pattern–looking at trees, then looking at cars, then looking at Sy.

You eventually speak up, just to make sure he’s okay after not talking for so long. "Penny for your thoughts?"

"I’d be a rich man,” he suddenly rubs his beard and chuckles. 

The chuckle seems…off. You frown. “...Everything okay?”

Settling his hand back on the steering wheel along with his other, he continues looking at the road ahead. “Yeah. Just a lot on my mind, I guess.”

It’s pretty early for deep-thinking of any sort, you think. “Anything you wanna talk about?”

“Just–” He shrugs. “Goin’ to see your family.” 

Without any warning, your stomach falls, and you feel the statement he’s about to make in your bones. In your chest, in your gut, in the pockets of your lungs, the dread spreads out, and it aches. 

He's having second thoughts.

There's a fleeting sensation of betrayal that he's breaking a promise to you. But that’s okay, though. You get it. Men don't like the whole "meeting the family" thing. You knew this was a possibility from the time you even invited him to come with you.

You clear your throat. “...You wanna turn back around?”

"What?" he briefly takes his eyes off the road and asks. "Why would we do that?"

"You really don't have to go if you don’t want to," you mutter. "It's seriously okay. I honestly don’t mind going alone."

Recognition passes over Sy's face. “That ain’t at all where I was goin’ with that,” he says. 

“...Oh,” you dumbly utter.

"Just wishin' my folks were still around, too. To meet you. That’s what I’m…That’s what’s on my mind."

At the unexpected sentimentality of his response, your eyes soften.

He's been talking a lot about his parents recently. He's either been thinking of them more than usual because of the holidays, or he's always thinking of them and is finally just comfortable enough to regularly talk about them out loud. 

"I wish I could’ve gotten to meet them, too,” you quietly reply. 

“Mm. They were great folks.”

You slip off your boots and pull up your feet to rest on the seat. “Tell me more about them."

“Think I’ve toldju most everything,” he says, and you consider that. He’s probably right. When it’s late and you both can’t sleep, Sy mainly talks about his past.

“Did they take y’all on any road trips?” you come up with.

“Oh, yeah,” Sy says.

So, Sy talks. And he talks. Picking up where he left off during the night the coyotes woke you up and you’d stayed up together all night talking in bed, he tells you more about his childhood and all the trips he and his dad went on–camping, fishing, hunting. When his father passed away, a lot of those trips stopped. 

His step-father was an irredeemable man, the polar-opposite of his biological dad, so they didn’t travel anywhere together. Sy doesn’t get too broody talking about him like he normally does, instead brushing over a lot of the negative things and mainly talking about his sisters after that and some of the things they’d do together. You, in turn, take the opportunity to share some of your family’s stories, and when you both don’t feel like talking anymore, you enjoy the new radio stations you end up finding while traveling along the interstate.

The songs play without ads, making time go by smoothly and happily as you sing along. Sy even surprises you by singing some verses, too, and you’re shocked to discover that you both have some real fucking harmony together. You find yourselves in North Carolina in no time.

You stop at an Exxon for gas, a bathroom break, and snacks, then after stretching for an indiscriminate amount of time, you take the driver’s seat. Before you know it, you're crossing over the Virginia line and dealing with the constant inclines and declines of the mountain roads. 

Sy’s gone through two long sticks of jerky and a packet of sunflower seeds. He opens a bag of Doritos next. "Who are we stayin' with, anyway? Your mom?"

“Oh, gosh, no,” you almost laugh. “I forgot to tell you. I booked a hotel. She wouldn't approve.”

"Of what?" he asks, questioningly pointing to himself a second later. 

"No, nothin' like that–she’s really lookin’ forward to meetin’ you,” you say. “Just of us…sleepin' together under her roof.”

Sy tilts his head to the side. "Well, if I get lucky, I get lucky."

You reach out and lightly smack his arm. "In the same bed together," you clarify.

“Why the hell not?”

The look on his face is almost comical, but you wince. “We’re not married.”

Sy lets out a laugh. “We’re grown adults here.”

“When Momma got remarried–Well, before she did, but she was seein’ the man for years–They went to my granddad’s house and slept in separate rooms.” You momentarily glance over at Sy. “And she was fifty-four at the time.”

“Hotel it is,” Sy states.

You laugh. "Well…Dad probably would let us stay with him, but…"

"But…?"

You shake your head. "Yeah, no. You'll see," you just mumble. "We're goin' there for dinner tomorrow. I mean, as long as that’s okay."

“I’m just here for the ride, baby,” he says. You glance at him sideways and smile.

The closer you get to your hometown, the more snow you see around you–on the mountain-tops in the distance, the hills around you, the sides of the roads. “Jeez, look at all this,” you mutter. “I’m surprised the roads are even driveable right now.”

“There was that storm last week that missed us,” Sy reminds you. 

“Oh, that’s right, that clipper,” you comment. “Well, that explains why my mom was so uppity about me being careful drivin’ today.”

Sy’s face is serious. “You wanna switch spots?”

“Oh, nothin’s icy, so I’ll be fine. Thanks, though.” You smile reassuringly at him. “We’re gettin’ real close now to where I grew up. We’ll have to pass through to get to the hotel, though–it’s like thirty minutes out.”

Soon afterwards, you approach the next state-road you’re supposed to turn onto, only to find it blocked. You groan, long and annoyed, and Sy perks up.

“There’s a freakin’ Civil War re-enactment going on,” you gesture to the left and explain. “I’ve gotta freakin’ detour.”

Sy cranes his neck around like he’d be able to see something in the distance, but you know that the field where everything’s taking place is too far from here to see. 

“It won’t be long,” you promise. “It’ll probably actually be quicker goin’ around town instead of through.”

Without using GPS, you take a right instead of a left, then you continue making your way down curvy roads leading to what everyone here refers simply as the “big town”. The main difference between “town” and “big town” are that “town” has two gas stations while “big town” has about ten, “town” has a few shops while “big town” has actual grocery stores, and “town” has fast food chains and “big town” has restaurants. And hotels. 

Across the street from the hotel, you stop at a gas station for some more snacks to hold you over until dinner. You also buy a few seltzers while Sy grabs a six-pack. 

“What we got on the schedule today?” Sy asks later on once you’ve made it to your room. 

“I was thinkin’ maybe I can show you around town a little,” you answer while watching Sy place both of your bags against the wall. “Nothing big, just drivin’ around, or…I dunno. I usually like to walk around a little bit, actually. If that’s okay. Nothing far or anything, but if you think it won’t be that great ‘cause of the snow, then we don’t have to do it like that.”

“Whatever you wanna do is what I’m gonna do,” he says, and looking at his face, he means it.

You look away for a second and smile. “Right. Then tonight some of my friends wanted to meet up at this restaurant place–it’s honestly like a bar but a little nicer. So if you weren’t opposed to that, then…that’s what we could get into on our first day here.”

“It’s a plan.”

On the queen-sized bed, you both lay down to relax after being in the car for so many hours. Sy’s so broad that this bed feels like it could be a twin, but that just means you’re extra snuggled. Without the television on, both of you just stare at the ceiling until you feel like turning your head to look at Sy. 

He just smiles, and you just smile back, and then for some reason, you start laughing.

______

Pebbles of salt crunch underneath your feet while you hold tightly onto Sy’s hand for leverage. The sidewalks are mostly clear of snow and entirely clear of ice, but as you stroll along, you like the stability he offers you nonetheless.

“So,” you propose eventually. “What’s your verdict on the town so far?”

“I think,” Sy slowly answers, “that if you took this town and put it next to my hometown, people wouldn’t be able to tell the difference.”

“Right?” you smile and reply. “It’s crazy.”

Instead of crossing the street when you reach the end of the sidewalk, you stop walking entirely, cuing Sy to pause, too. There’s a man walking on the other side of the street in a large white jacket, and he’s achingly, terribly familiar. 

Sy instantly clocks the expression on your face. “Problem?”

“Um. I think–I think that’s my ex over there,” you mumble as quietly as you can, and to anyone else, your voice wouldn’t even be comprehensible. To Sy, who’s nothing but attentive to you, his face perks up immediately. 

Small-town nosiness be-fucking-damned, Michael fucking notices you instantly, and he fast-walks across the street just as you were hoping to make your getaway around the corner.

Damn it. Two years of not having to see his stupid fucking face…

“Well, look who it is,” he greets you almost enthusiastically, and you just stare at him. After the way things went the last time you spoke to him–before you got a brand-new phone with a brand-new number altogether–you don’t know why he’s talking to you like this, like you’re old friends or something. Or–why he’s talking to you at all. 

Years. It’s been years.

“Hi,” you brusquely say, stepping closer to the building. You can’t get directly beside the building because there’s snow piled up there, and you can’t side-step Michael, either. 

Like a dance with moving parts, the second you move closer to the building, Sy moves closer to you.

"What, you got yourself a bodyguard now or somethin'?" Michael asks next, laughing when he sees Sy so close to you.

Outwardly, you peek at Sy, and internally, you sigh. This is gonna be just lovely. “Um, this is–”

Sy takes a step forward and firmly reaches out his arm. "Syverson," he introduces himself with a disingenuous grin, his eyes bright with a mischief only you can recognize. As he takes your ex-boyfriend’s hand in his own and squeezes it, he maintains eye-contact and says, “Sure ain’t happy to meetcha.”

Michael’s matching smile drops a little as he shakes Sy’s hand, his face morphing into a few different expressions like maybe he’d just heard the man wrong.

“O-kay,” Michael says, and he starts to wipe his hand on the side of his jacket when he drops one of his gloves. He picks it up before straightening himself out again. 

“Ain’t got a name?” Sy raises his eyebrows and curiously asks.

You briefly close your eyes at the awkwardness that ensues. Clearing your throat, you say, "Sy, this is Michael.”

"Mike,” he corrects while looking at you. "So, how long you in town for? How long you been here?" 

"Just a couple days,” you mutter. “The answer to both your questions.”

As he shifts his focus from you to Sy, you get the impression that Michael wishes you were alone. "You should swing by the restaurant tonight,” he suggests.

With snow around him, in his white jacket, he looks like a great white shark. Or a polar bear. Either way, your heart is thumping and your brain is signaling out–threat, threat, threat.

After he refers to what everyone around here simply calls “The Restaurant,” you look down at your boots. It was actually in your plans tonight to meet up there with some old friends. 

Stupidly, you say as much. “Yeah, I’m actually already gonna go,” you mumble.

“Sweet,” Michael says. “Find me when you get there.”

You let out a scoff without even meaning to. With a slight scowl, you frown for a minute, not sure at all how to respond to him, and beside you, Sy chuckles. You whip your head to look at him, and his mischievous smart-ass expression has morphed into the face he wears when he’s speaking to your old boss, Cole–one of contempt, one of outward disdain.

“And here I thought for sure you didn’t have any balls,” Sy says, chuckling in a way that seems ominous, and you notice Michael’s eyebrows rise a little. 

You want to step back from whatever this confrontation is fixing to be, but you’re unable to due to the snow-piles around you. Sy finds your wrist and holds it securely, not pinching or squeezing.

“Do what?” Michael asks.

“Said an’ here I thought for sure you didn’t have any balls,” Sy raises his voice as he repeats himself, enunciating his words in a way he doesn’t ever do. “But here you’re askin’ her out right in front’a me. Gotta give it to you, man. Takes some fuckin’ nerve.”

The way Michael’s eyes change as he realizes what Sy’s just said would be funny to you, but your desire to have him just be gone outweighs anything humorous about the situation at all. 

Michael looks at Sy and then at you, then back at Sy again. Then back to you. His face breaks out in a grin when Sy wraps an arm around you, and then he starts to laugh uncomfortably. “You’re goin’ out with this dude, Y/N?” he asks.

Your name sounds horrible coming from his mouth. 

"Yes," you mutter, wanting to escape. His smile seems condescending. “Is that…Is that not obvious?”

In a way that reminds you entirely too much of the past, Michael switches personalities in a flash, loosening his shoulders like he’s speaking to good friends, turning his smile to Sy like they’re buddies. He even holds up his hands in a display of meaning no harm with his words. You recognize it as an act of self-preservation to avoid a fight. 

On the few occasions Michael ever was in an argument with another man, he acted the same way. Unfortunately, the anger would still bottle up underneath his extremely fake external persona, and with no other outlet available to release it besides you, you always dealt with the ugly aftermath.

“My bad, y’all, my bad.” He gestures to you with his head and looks to Sy. “Didn’t know she was into body-builders these days. So, you keepin’ her in line, then?” he asks, and Sy simply lifts an eyebrow.

“Keepin’ her…in line?”

Michael’s weight visibly shifts, the salt underneath his shoes audibly crunching. “Yeah, you know what I mean.”

“Not sure I do,” Sy states, then he looks at you with the most obviously staged face-of-confusion you’ve ever witnessed before turning to face Michael again. “Think she can stand in a line all by herself, honestly,” he says with a shrug and his lips curved downwards in contemplation.

This entire conversation is awful.

“Uhh, alright, dude,” Michael murmurs, and he bends down to pick up a glove that he’s yet again dropped onto the snow.

Sy briefly tightens his hand around your wrist until he securely finds your hand, and he stares directly into Michael’s eyes in a way that, even not directed at you, makes you feel like cowering purely on Michael’s behalf. 

Which is stupid. He doesn’t deserve your pity. He doesn’t deserve shit.

With all four fingers pressed tightly together, Sy uses his entire free hand to gesture down the sidewalk. "We need to walk this direction.”

There’s a long moment of silence.

"So if you'll excuse us," Sy finishes through clenched teeth, and Michael finally takes the hint to step aside. 

As Sy leads you across the street, you hold onto his hand and begin walking far, far away from Michael, making it to the next street before removing your hand from Sy’s. You wrap both of your arms around yourself instead.

“God, I’m such a fuckin’ dumbass,” you say under your breath, your face scrunched up in worry, your mind a blizzard of messy thoughts.

“Why?” Sy asks. “For datin’ that pissant?”

“No, for–” You cut yourself off with a reluctant laugh at Sy’s phrase. “I just said out loud where we’re gonna meet tonight. I should’ve–I’m so fucking stupid.”

“Don’t,” Sy warns, and at being scolded, you breathe in a quick gust of chilly air through your nose.

You can’t help it, though. You feel so fucking dumb. “That means he knows I’m gonna be there, Sy,” you all-but whine.

Sy grunts.

“That means he’s gonna be there,” you sulk even more.

Sy pauses and twists his head around to look far behind him. You glance in that direction, too, just in time to see Michael slip on the sidewalk. He reaches out for a streetlamp directly next to him to steady himself, but within seconds, his entire lower-body seems to collapse to the side in mid-air. He keeps himself from falling on his hip bone by holding onto the metal pole, but only barely. 

You and Sy turn back around. “Don’t think you got anything to worry about, sweetheart.”

But it’s you. And of course you’ll worry. 

The rest of your “pleasant winter stroll” is quiet, soured by your brief yet jarring interaction with Michael. You know you’re only making it worse by being in your head about it, but you honestly can’t help it. It’s the first time you’ve seen him in person since–

“You ain’t really talked all that much about him before,” Sy comments while you decide to turn left on a corner that leads to the town library. It’s a safe place for you, and it’ll be warm inside. You hear they sell coffee now.

“Bad memories,” you softly say, and you gesture to the library in the distance. “Here, let’s warm up.”

As the automatic doors of the library slide open, the scent inside welcomes you and brings with it hundreds of old memories. They’re all pleasant, at least, from your childhood up to your teenage years. When Sy buys two cups of cheap coffee, you figure that Sy is ready for you to delve into the more unpleasant memories from your time with Michael.

You’re ready, too. It’s time.

There are small tables and chairs along the side of the library’s far wall, off past a row of unused computers. You and Sy sit down in front of each other. After shrugging off your coats, you both slightly tilt your chairs so you can look outside through a large window. There’s not much to watch besides a few cars sporadically driving down the street and a person or two gingerly walking along the sidewalk from time-to-time, and after a while, you feel Sy’s shoe gently brush against yours.

“I…Yeah.” You look down and shake your head. 

“You look like you got a lot on your mind.”

Understatement. “I don't even know where to start.”

“Wherever you want, darlin’,” Sy says, and his face is open in a way that tells you he'd listen to literally anything you wanted to say. 

“He’s really, really good at playing a character, I guess,” you start off. “I don’t know how else to describe it. Like, he acts one way in public, then he’s different all alone. It’s how he got me to start liking him in the first place,” you admit. “I thought I was fallin’ for someone else.”

Where you’d normally worry about talking so much–especially about an ex of yours to your current partner–you finally share some stories of your time with Michael. Stories that remain ingrained in your mind even after all this time.

It’s easier with coffee. It’s easier looking out of a window. It’s easier knowing with no uncertainty that you have Sy’s unconditional support. It's easier knowing that he wants to hear.

So, you start with the beginning. And, as all of your relationships have gone, things were fine in the beginning.

Things were fine. 

Michael. You liked the name. Like the angel. 

He was a friend of a friend from the other side of the county, mysterious enough that you were intrigued, local enough that you could actually date him. Tall. Cute smile. A year older than you.

There were some strange things you noticed about him at first, yeah, but nothing too bad. Nothing horrible compared to the guys before, at least. The fact that he lived with his parents wasn’t odd to you since you lived with your mother, too, and also, it was normal for men of his age not to have a serious long-term job yet, either.

Almost one after the other, you’d had short-term relationships before Michael, finding yourself in the same scenario again and again: your anxiety got the best of you, and the guys left the first chance they could to find someone better and more fun. Losing your virginity alone was enough of a panic-inducing life-changing event, but being in an actual long-term relationship–your mind could simply never relax. 

…Even though being in an actual long-term relationship was literally one of your lifelong dreams. Marriage, kids, the whole thing. Stability and happiness amidst the chaos of your mind. 

You obviously knew that all of your previous relationships ended due to one common denominator: you. Determined to not repeat this same pattern, you spoke to your doctor and were prescribed more medication to top what you already took. You were optimistic that things would improve in your own internal world. You really didn't want to lose the best thing that had ever happened to you.

Though he wasn’t working, he had savings, and he’d always insist on paying for things for you. He took you out to restaurants almost all the time. He bought you gifts. In the first few months of going out, you went to three different concerts together. It was absolutely exhilarating.

He’d compliment you all the time, almost in excess, but he’d just look down and smile when you pointed it out. “I can’t help it,” he said. “I’ve just never felt this way about anyone before. You're perfect to me.” 

All day, you knew if you looked at your phone, there would be texts from him that would make happiness spread throughout your entire body. It was nice to feel important in someone's eyes. It was nice to feel desired.

Michael was trustworthy. You opened up to him–really opened up–about your past. How your parents’ divorce and your not-that-great previous relationships had affected you. About your insecurities. You told him everything, and even with the more negative stuff, he always paid very close attention to whatever you said. Like you mattered. 

And when you finally opened up about your mental health struggles and the medications you were taking–an absolutely monumental admission for you to make–he was understanding of that, too. The pure relief you felt inside you after sharing all of your personal anxieties and was unlike any other.

You knew that things were going well when, after an entire year into the relationship, you hadn’t been dumped yet.

***

You and Michael moved in together when you began your last year of undergrad. It was the smallest and crappiest broke-college-kid apartment you could imagine, but you made it work. Other friends around you shacked up in larger groups, but you were able to get by with just you and Michael; your student loans allowed you to pay ahead and kept you stable. And yeah, in the beginning, y’all slept on a mattress on the floor without a frame or even a boxspring, but those things didn’t matter to you. You were just happy to take the first step away from your mother's house and towards an independent future with your boyfriend. Things were going places.

An apartment leased in your name just thirty minutes from your hometown, on track to earning a degree at the university you’ve wanted to attend since you were little, a job with fun coworkers, a boyfriend of over a year who had business aspirations… You were happy.

You and Michael continued to get on extremely well after moving in together. He kept getting you gifts, and he added you to his phone plan, and he made efforts to take you on dates around both of your busy schedules. He listened to you when you’d talk about school and your passion for social work and your hopes and dreams of having a family in the future. 

“One day you'll have a ring on your finger,” he promised. Your mind was alight with vast future prospects. It was gonna be great. 

Slowly, things grew a little odd, though, and you couldn’t really place it. Michael steadily began changing in small ways. If someone were to ask you to actually explain the changes, though, you wouldn't be able to, so that made you feel like your mind was coming up with things that weren't even true. All you knew is that your daily life just…felt different. Michael felt different. 

It was enough to leave you confused on almost a daily basis.

The compliments died down, and that was totally fine because they were hard for you to accept in the first place, but they didn’t just die down and that was it. In their place were insults. Or–not insults, you guessed, but more negative things that he didn’t used to say. Judgmental things. 

Things about why you were wearing that particular outfit to go to campus (the air conditioner broke in the main building housing social work professors). Or about who you were always texting so much (a group chat for a class project). Or about why you'd want to shower sometimes right after coming home from work (your job as a cashier made you feel gross after touching nasty items and dirty money all day).

He said that with you two living together now, it was his role to protect you and take care of you, and he took that role seriously. You appreciated how mature of a viewpoint that was and grew to understand it. You weren’t ignorant whatsoever about on-campus crime, and besides Michael, who else could you really turn to if you were in trouble?

In time, Michael’s concern for your well-being extended to protecting you from even your own family, and that led to some strife in the beginning. He didn't trust them, and you hated to admit that he actually had very valid points to support his distrust, points that even you couldn't find fault in.

When you were fourteen, your dad cheated on your mom and then divorced her, leaving you both behind and moving three hours away. Though you made multiple trips over the years to his new house he shared with his wife, he never drove to specifically see you. 

Your mom's lifelong poor financial decisions meant she was never able to financially provide for you in the way a parent typically does for their children, and that caused self-esteem issues your entire life. Michael reminded you that your car was bought with your own hard-earned money and that you're only in college in the first place because of your student loans. 

All of these things were true. Why would you fully trust people, even your own family, who didn't have your best interest at heart? It was hard to justify. 

Then–your friends from home. Michael didn't like them, either. They hadn't helped you move into the apartment when you had asked, and they, like your family, also haven't made any trips to see you. What good were they to you? What had they ever done? Michael reminded you of some of the arguments you’d had with your friends in the past, and–yeah, you could see where he was coming from there, too.

…But they were literally your friends of multiple years. It was hard coming to terms with the hard facts of life, yeah, but you couldn't entirely give up on them. And definitely not your family. 

When you continued texting and calling your friends and family, however, Michael would get upset that you’d shared stuff with them before you’d shared with him.

“Sorry I’m not enough for you,” he’d say, and you rushed to reassure him. Of course he was enough for you. You were living with him. You were loyal to him.

And he was loyal to only you, too, and that’s the reason it mattered so much. He loved you, and you were going to have a future together, and he hated to see you work so hard and to have no support from anybody but himself. The more he broke everything down, the more it made sense. You have had to be financially independent from an early age. You’ve struggled for much of your young adult life because of it.

And your friends? When was the last time they drove the short distance down the road to visit you? None of them even went to school; they were still local. They could easily come see you if they wanted to. They just…didn’t. You could see Michael's point there, too. 

It was stressful, but you both leaned on one another. Finishing your last year of college while also working full-time was a lot for you, and Michael getting his business up and running was also a lot for him. You both had so much going on, but you reminded yourself it was all for a purpose: to build the future you dreamed of having together.

***

Michael was taking online business management classes at a university that was advertised on TV, and he spent all his time outside of that networking. He reminded you that all entrepreneurs have started out exactly like he’s doing–out of school, broke, with only a dream–and technically speaking, he was right. Steve Jobs and Bill Gates were pioneers, and he’d follow in their footsteps. All self-made businesses took a while to establish.

Since he supported you so much, you invested money in his endeavors to show your support. It was smart to do it early so you had more stock in his company once it took off. The investment, just like all your current hard work on your relationship, would pay off in the end. 

Michael was just such a good guy, and there was real potential with him. You'd never been this far into a relationship before and were learning things all the time about what this looked like. You were determined to not ruin things. 

You were determined.

You began practicing better external friendliness, more pleasant behavior. Less worrying and more agreeing. Apologizing for things not your fault or not even in your control. Things that would both please and appease him.

That’s not to say that you perfected all that. You still managed to mess up sometimes since again, you were still learning how long-term relationships operated, but Michael would be honest and let you know if you’d done something wrong. You appreciated his honesty so you could grow together as a couple, but it almost seemed like you weren’t allowed to be honest with him about stuff.

It always came back to your mental health issues and your medication. 

There were multiple conversations you had with him about not-so-pleasant traits on his behalf that were dismissed entirely because you wouldn’t be “thinking this” or “doing that” if you weren’t so pumped full of meds all the time–or if you were simply taking the “right” meds. You wouldn’t be “taking things so personally” if it weren’t for your anxiety. You wouldn’t be “fixating on his business” if it weren’t for your anxiety. 

You were constantly second-guessing yourself. Were you overreacting when you met a few of his friends and felt ignored all night? Were you coming up with problems that didn’t exist?

At least he would apologize if he noticed that something he’d said had truly upset you, though. There was one particular time that he felt you’d over-reacted when he’d not come home until, like, two in the morning, and he punched a hole in the bathroom wall while you curled yourself into a ball underneath your covers, crying. 

The next day, he was right there in bed crying with you . Holding you tightly, he apologized again and again. “I had a really horrible childhood, Y/N,” he sniffed. “I wasn’t ever loved by my parents. My dad was so, so mean to me, and I didn’t have any other role models for how to be in a relationship. I’m tryin’ all on my own to figure this out.”

You ran your hands over his hair when started sobbing into your neck, soothing him the best you could, just like you liked to be soothed when you had break-downs. Just like you, Michael had his issues. Just like you, he was trying. 

***

Within a few months of living together, the arguments began happening more frequently.

“Finally. Where’ve you been?” Michael asked when you stepped inside and kicked off your shoes, and you gave him a funny look before glancing down at your uniform.

It had been a long, long shift at work. Mean customers who demanded to speak to a manager, stupid customers who couldn’t follow simple directions to locate things and required you to do their shopping, gross customers who pulled dollar bills out of their bras… You had had a day.

After your shift ended, you’d stayed in the parking lot with some of your co-workers for a while, venting about everything. Leaning on your vehicles and sharing story after story with one another, time just simply got away from you. 

Not thinking anything of it, when everyone said goodbye, you got in your little car and drove to your apartment like you would on any other evening. It was yet another time you realized how small decisions you’d used to consider insignificant were actually really big deals for Michael. Enough to impact his entire mood, really. Enough to fight over.

You held out your arms and looked down at your uniform. "Work..."

“You got off an hour ago,” he replied, and you looked up at the clock nonchalantly. 

Apparently it was too nonchalantly. An argument had ensued after that, leaving you even more exhausted, but mainly just confused. Of course you weren’t somewhere other than work. Of course you weren’t talking to anyone besides your co-workers.

You ended up staying up for entirely too long arguing, feeding into the accusations he was making by yelling back at him when you had exhausted all other efforts of calm and rational communication, turning into someone you weren’t as a way to defend yourself from the outrightly crazy things he was making you out to be. The argument moved from the living room to the bathroom to the bedroom.

“It’s just, I’m out doing sales pitches all day and I was looking forward to you being home when you said you’d be home from your retail job,” he’d told you, and the emphasis on “retail job” came across as if your position wasn’t substantial. “But as always, it’s like I’m not important enough.”

“I didn’t mean to make you feel unimportant!” you raised your voice and yelled, nervous-system on hyperdrive after telling the truth for so long only to have it misbelieved repeatedly. “Just–I had just got off work and I just wasn’t think–”

“Wasn’t thinking,” he finished. “‘Cause I’m not important enough for you to remember!”

“That’s not what I said, that’s not–that’s not what I meant!”

He began pacing with his hands on the back of his head. “I guess I just care about you more than you care about me.”

You wiped your puffy eyes. “I had a really rough day, okay? I was just talking about what happened at work with my co-workers, I swear. I was just talking.”

“With who?”

“Shane and Tim and Gena.”

Michael rolled his eyes at that because you knew he didn’t like Shane, but luckily said no more. 

You changed clothes quietly and sat down in bed in an old t-shirt and loose shorts, leaning backwards against the headboard. You yearned for sleep at this point. You just wanted peace. 

Michael got in bed next to you. He reached out to play with your hair. 

“I’m sorry,” you whispered. “I really didn’t mean to be inconsiderate or anything.”

He sighed. “I’m sorry, too,” he told you. “I just hate that we haven’t been spending as much time together as we used to. And when I don’t know where you are, it...it worries me, Y/N. It's best with you right here, so I know nothing bad'll ever happen.”

You kept trying to get your eyes entirely dry. It came easy as Michael began running his hand up and down your bare leg. You felt better within seconds. 

It was nice that he felt like his role as your boyfriend, in a way, was to protect you. Even though you didn't need that, you couldn't deny that a part of you still wanted that, still longed for that. You wanted to feel like no matter what, your partner would always be there to just...take care of you. To love you. To make sure nothing bad happened to you. 

Just like Michael had said. 

“Yeah,” you murmured, now laying down horizontally and finding a pillow to rest on. “I get that. It’s been so much going on lately, hasn't it?"

Michael started to caress your stomach with broad circular motions, soothing your skin underneath your shirt. 

"But it won’t be like this forever," you closed your eyes and imagined. 

“Nope,” he said. “Not when I’m gonna be makin’ the big bucks.”

That got you to smile just a little.

Michael rolled on top of you shortly after that, and after a few honey-sweet words, you took your clothes off. 

After you were done having sex and he'd come, you got up to make yourself something to eat for dinner. 

By the next morning, things smoothed over entirely.

***

In the living room, you looked in the mirror one last time before getting your purse. You lucked out on getting a shift that ended at six in the evening somehow, so you’d be able to be home in time to have a sit-down dinner with Michael. Those were coveted these days–with your classes taking up all morning and early afternoon, your shifts were mainly four p.m. to close, well past eleven.

You looked back at Michael while standing in front of the door. “What do you feel like eatin' for supper?”

“Taco Tuesday,” he answered with a chipperness in his voice, and you vividly remember being excited about it. You’d raised your eyebrows enthusiastically and grinned and everything. Even if you ended up running a little late clocking out at work which you were always very careful not to do, you’d still have plenty of time to run to the store to get ground turkey and all types of toppings. And you’d still have plenty of time to cook, too. 

When your shift ended, you made sure to text Michael so he knew what you were doing in case something came up. Your co-workers wanted to hang out and chat outside in the parking lot, so you'd indulged, but you had to make it really quick or else you’d be late. 

Not too long later, you found yourself lugging three full bags of groceries up the apartment steps, excited to begin cooking, but when you stepped in, the warm and heavy scent of marinara assaulted your nose. For some reason, Michael was cooking.

The smell of spaghetti and meatballs permeated the small apartment, and yeah, it smelled good, but as you stepped fully into the kitchen, you realized that you wouldn’t be able to eat anything. He’d used regular pasta and not the gluten-free type you had, and instead of ground turkey, he’d chosen beef. 

An upset you couldn’t name spread through you, but underneath that, there was confusion. You knew that you’d talked about having tacos for dinner–with meat you could actually digest. You knew you did. But by this point, you had become a master at thinking ahead, about predicting what could happen at any given time, and if you tried to call him out on him saying something entirely different this morning, he’d make you question things, and then you would maintain your stance, and maintain your stance, and maintain your stance, and then after all the back-and-forth, you’d get tired of it and would just let it go to prevent an argument. 

Or–you’d maintain your stance and maintain your stance and then be convinced that the way you remembered the earlier events wasn’t what actually happened. He’d say something like, I meant next Tuesday, or I meant I was going out for Mexican for lunch, or That’s not what I said at all–Your medicine’s fucking up your memory again. You're not this stupid, Y/N. C'mon.

Or, if you outwardly acted unhappy, he’d call you ungrateful, and then it would turn into a thing about how other girls would be thrilled that their boyfriends cooked for them after they had to work all day. Other girls would show some fucking appreciation.

Or, if you gave in and ate the food, though, you’d get sick. 

Weighing your options, you chose to put all the groceries you’d just bought in the refrigerator and make a plate of plain spaghetti with meat-sauce on the side. 

After Michael ate and put his dishes on top of all the dirty saucepans in the kitchen sink, he walked over to his desk in the living room like he normally did at random hours of the day for work. He’d recently gotten invited to speak at a conference in D.C. of all places, so he’d been looking up similar events online in all of his spare time. Things were slowly but surely taking off.

Glad to be unnoticed, you quietly walked to the bathroom, shut the door behind you, and turned on the sink faucets. You threw up all the contents in your stomach for the next few minutes, and after you finished cleaning yourself up, you walked back into the kitchen and started washing the dishes.

**

At the sake of being young and experimental, you did stuff in bed with Michael that you didn’t really want to or necessarily like. That didn't bother you too much, though. What was worst would be when you’d had an extremely long day of class, work, and interning and would come home just screaming for relaxation…only to discover that Michael again had stayed up yet again into the morning hours doing business stuff on his laptop, had slept in until the afternoon, and was entirely wide-awake and horny by the time you arrived home ready for bed.

It happened enough to be an actual pattern. Real excuses never mattered, but then again, fake ones didn’t, either. There weren’t any consistent headaches you had, nothing weird like that. It would just come down to you being tired. And you were. You simply were just too tired to fool around. And he simply was too determined. 

So you'd bicker. You’d ask to wait until the morning, until tomorrow night. “Michael, seriously, it's not like we go weeks without sex or anything.” You were young college students. You slept together regularly.

Michael still acted like you were withholding your body for months if you denied him just once, though, not able to handle what he viewed as rejection, and “you should know how it feels to be rejected, Y/N.” 

You tried explaining for so long that it wasn’t you rejecting him, it was just that you didn’t feel up for it at that specific time. You didn’t know why you even tried to logically explain anything to him because it never worked.

The persistence would eventually drive you crazy when all you would want to do would be to just fucking fall asleep, and ultimately, you’d huff and roll over in bed. 

You widened your legs. “Fine. C’mon.”

That would lead to him scowling down at you and sighing heavily. “Well, I don’t wanna fuckin’ rape you, Y/N, Jesus.”

So. You were stuck. Fight or fuck?

When you gave in, you would never do anything overly performative, but nothing was enjoyable with you not being all the way in it. The goal was always simple: get him off quickly while not coming across totally disinterested so you could finally get some sleep when it was done. Not a very time-lengthy thing.

…Well, in theory. 

By the next morning, consistently operating on just a few hours of sleep, you’d always end up with a soreness inside your underwear, a stiffness in your jaw, and what you’d imagine arthritis in your wrist would feel like. Sometimes you had to take naps in your car in between your classes to catch up on missed sleep.

It was better than crying in your car in between your classes, at least.

***

The next semester came around, and you just–you were getting so beyond confused at how to get things back to how they were at the start of your relationship. You could never read the play with Michael anymore. It was a constantly-shifting goal post that was up to you to guess where he’d move it next.

If you woke him up after his alarm was annoyingly going off for forty minutes, he’d get mad that you didn’t just let him sleep. If you let him sleep, he’d get mad that you didn’t wake him up. If you wanted to drive somewhere, then he’d wanted to be the one who drove. If you wanted him to drive somewhere, then he’d want to be the passenger. 

You just couldn’t win. 

You still tried, though. You couldn’t help it. You were always trying.

***

Michael came home one random day with an excessively giant bouquet of roses for no apparent reason at all, and you’d gasped in surprise, even letting your laptop accidentally fall to the floor. You felt special in a way that spread literal warmth throughout your entire body. You leapt from the couch and accepted the flowers in a state of semi-shock, accepting a hug and a slew of kisses from him next.

In the bedroom, after you'd been thoroughly kissed and worked up enough for sex, Michael asked to try something new. It didn’t take an awful lot of time to say yes to him fucking you up the ass because of how good he’d been taking care of you. He would take care of you in this, too.

Despite having nothing to go by for reference, you figured that it'd feel somewhat good, even if it would probably be awkward. You knew there were people that actually really enjoyed it, and surely they must enjoy it for a reason. 

You were only able to make it one minute, maybe less. 

After you'd consented, he took himself in hand almost immediately and pressed against the tightest and smallest and dryest place of your body. You squeezed your eyes shut when he began piercing his way inside, and when he only kept going, you dug your fingers into his biceps. 

The sensation wasn’t dull, wasn’t distant; it took up the focus of your entire world. Lightning-sharp and burning, the pain screamed. It hurt. It hurt badly.

He didn’t give you time to get used to anything. He didn’t go all the way inside for you to adjust. He just went in and out repeatedly like he’d been right on the edge this whole time, and every thrust you took felt like being bluntly stabbed. 

Through an awful wince, you were forced to tell Michael you couldn't do it, please no more, please stop, you couldn’t take it. It took a few seconds, but he listened, and even after he backed out, your asshole ached like your skin there had been stretched with pliers. Like the insides were torn.

You ended up just having sex the way you were used to, and Michael didn't seem too disappointed, thankfully. You struggled knowing exactly when he'd get upset about things, and you were half-expecting him to bring up the roses he'd gotten you as some sort of way for you to feel bad about not being able to give him this thing he clearly really wanted.

After it was done, you went to use the bathroom to pee and get rid of all the stickiness on your inner thighs. On the toilet, you wiped yourself clean, dropped the toilet-paper into the water, and shakily stood to flush. Looking down, you saw the water tainted with bright red spots of blood. 

***

By the time graduation came around, you’d self-isolated for so long that only a few people showed up to cheer you on. The fight you'd gotten into with Michael the night before had left your eyes swollen even into the next day, and you had to work extra hard to make your smiles genuine in any picture taken of you. 

Behind his back the week after that, you met up with your mother and, while in town, ran into an old friend from high school named Deseree. You were surprised to hear that she'd been texting you and thought you'd been ignoring her for, like, an entire year. In turn, you told her that you thought she wasn't interested in being friends anymore because she just sort of stopped communicating with you after you moved in with Michael.

She explained how she was on vacation when you moved and apologized for not being able to help, and she said that she'd been texting off and on for months. After taking out both of your phones and looking through them, you had no idea why you hadn't gotten any of her messages at all. It wasn't like her number was blocked–you checked, and it wasn't. 

Anyway, you decided Instagram would work for future communication since something was obviously messed up with your phone and Michael had your Facebook password.

And even though it felt like you were being somehow dishonest, you started talking to her almost every day again. 

***

Your concerns over Michael’s career ventures began to grow when Deseree asked you what he actually did and you weren't able to even answer her. 

When you asked him actual questions to try to learn more about what work he actually did, he explained things shortly, saying you wouldn't understand the technicalities. 

The point was–you wanted to understand them. It wasn't like you were stupid just because Michael considered your major “easy”. So you casually asked him things. Who his actual clients were, how he acquired them as clients, what actual business he did with them. You began getting some weird impression that maybe he’d been doing something illegal this entire time or something. What other reason would he have to be so elusive?

It became a very sore topic. He always made every calm question from you turn into this giant “interrogation” that made him storm out of the apartment every time.

Just--what exactly was this business he'd been spending so much time and effort working towards? Besides the uncertainty regarding his actual job description, there was also uncertainty over his money. Why didn’t he have more to show for his work? It'd been two years. 

You had your degree now, and the next steps you both had planned for the future were establishing careers and then, ultimately, getting married and starting a family. You didn't know how exactly he was establishing his career, and you just wanted peace of mind so you wouldn't have to constantly worry.

Cautiously–foolishly–you revisited the questions about his business soon after graduation. You asked for more information, for a simple business license or, or, or–something. Something the bank would ask for whenever you both signed up for a mortgage down the line. 

“You don’t trust me,” he snapped, pacing the tiny living room. “After everything–you’re gonna sit here and keep on questioning me like this?”

“I just asked a–” You clamped your mouth shut. It was better to just let this topic die off. You shouldn’t’ve even asked the questions in the first place. “I’m sorry.”

He gave you a long look. “You've been talkin’ to someone, haven't you?”

You widened your mouth. He found out about you messaging your old friend, you guess. You didn't want to lie about it because if he already knew about you talking to Deseree then he'd already recognize the lie, but if you did lie, then you knew things wouldn’t escalate. 

“You have,” he paused and accused. “And they got into your gullible little head, and they're makin’ you question shit, and now this. You still don't believe me.”

He sat down next to you and pulled out his phone. Jerkily, he opened his camera roll and made you watch as he swiped from picture to picture, all of himself in nice suits with other important-looking people. Some pictures were of him in front of large buildings and skyscrapers you didn't recognize. You watched all of this with mounting confusion. 

“There,” he said. “You happy?”

“I just–I–I'm just asking, Michael, what is it that you actually do? That's–So we can get our finances straight before–”

“Think I can't provide?” he asked, unusually defensive. “Is that what this is about? Think I can't go out to bars in any of these cities and pick up women who'd actually appreciate the shit I do for them?”

“I do appreciate you,” you whispered. 

“Bullshit.”

“I do, Michael,” you maintained. “I just wanted to get our finances straight.”

“Because you don't trust me.”

You closed your eyes. “I just wanted to know what exactly you do,” you murmured almost robotically, voice dissolved of inflection. “That's all.”

He gave you nothing. The silence you sat in with him was full of shame. 

“I'm takin’ a client out to lunch,” he said. “Don't text me.”

And you cried when he left. Why weren't you ever fucking enough? 

***

You applied for a new job, and your interview was on your calendar, circled in blue ink. The day before it, you sat on the floor rocking back and forth against the side of your bed. Your lungs were closing in.

You had the interview to worry about, but also bigger things like expenses. Your student loans had to be repaid now, and you couldn’t rely on any more loans to cover rent anymore. And you wanted to believe that Michael would help out, but you just didn't know anymore. You had no idea what to do about anything. 

Answers to potential interview questions raced through your head. What if it was a panel interview? What if it was purely a situational interview? What if you couldn't come up with a scenario that would make sense? What if you looked like shit in the interview and they judged you?

You let out a shaky breath. You wanted this job. You needed this job. Full-time with benefits. A set Monday-Friday schedule. Right close to where you grew up. You could move out of this college town and move back home.

But you just felt helpless right now, some sense of dread and doom weighing on your chest you couldn’t get to just fucking evaporate already and bother someone else. There would be no way in hell you'd be chosen for this job. You're you. You're not anything compared to other applicants. You're nothing. Tears covered your cheeks while your heart began to thump out of nowhere, and then the thumps took over your entire body and your entire focus. 

Your heartbeat was in your ears. It was loud in your chest since your heart was now ten times its normal size. It was expanding and fixing to explode. Not being able to slow it down, you started to panic more. Fucker loser. You were a fucking loser and your medicine didn't even fucking work, and you were all alone and no one else besides Michael would ever even put up with this fucking shit.

The door opened and you heard a few quick footsteps, then–“Oh, what is it now?” a voice asked. 

You put your forehead on your knees while continuing to rock back and forth. Shaking, you felt gross and ugly and wanted to scrape your skin raw. You tried heaving in breaths but couldn’t. You were entirely unable to do the simple fucking task of breathing.

It wasn’t just the upcoming interview. Anytime you panicked, it was never just one thing. There was no “just”. It was everything piled up so high it toppled over.

Michael put a hand on your shoulder and started shaking it. You cringed from the sensation of being touched and started truly hyperventilating.

“Y/N,” he said. “C'mon. Just stand up.”

You shook your head.

“Stand up, Y/N–you gotta get up.”

Even quicker, you shook your head. You kept your forehead pressed to your knees.

“Just stand up!” he said with growing impatience. 

Through breaths that sounded like you were in the middle of a cycling class, you managed to pull all the hate inside you and shouted, “You don't even care about me!”

“I'm the ONLY ONE who cares about you!” Michael bellowed. “I'm the only one who knows everything about you and still hasn't left you!”

You began sobbing. “W-Why are you always so mean?”

“Y/N, it's not being mean,” he said with slow frustration. “It's being real. You need to stand the fuck up to let your lungs have more room to work.”

You sniffed. You couldn’t get up.

“You know what?” he said from some distance away. “I'm done with this shit. You always say you’re afraid I’m gonna leave you? Well, I am gonna leave you.”

“You don't mean that,” you shakily said. Still, your eyes widened in fear. 

Michael left with a duffel bag full of his things that night.

None of it made sense. You knew you didn’t always get along, but in real long-term relationships like this, that’s just how they went. Couples would fight. You didn’t think anything was bad enough for him to…to entirely abandon you. 

You cried and you shook and you sobbed and you trembled. A lot. And it made no sense because you knew somewhere inside that you would be better off without him, but you also still wanted him for some reason. And you wanted him to want you. 

It just made no sense. You knew it made no sense. The two of you were tied in some weird way. You’d lived together. You’d done so much together. You’d planned for a future. He was the main person in your life. You’d become distant from your friends and your coworkers and your family, and now what? Now there was nobody. Now you were alone.

You just wanted to be the main person in somebody else’s life. You wanted someone to notice when you were supposed to be home and be worried that you didn’t arrive on time. You wanted someone with goals like owning a business, with steps on how to get there, with a plan. You wanted someone to call you baby. 

All of it was gone. You texted Michael long paragraphs. He didn’t acknowledge your messages.

You waited an entire week to come to terms with the fact that he hadn’t left to cool off. He’d left you.

***

A month later, your lease came to an end. You briefly moved back in with your parents for the summer, and that’s when you and one of your childhood friends came up with a plan. At the end of a long drawn-out divorce, Justine was just as distraught as you were, and she was ready for a drastic change. And shit, after graduating and needing a better job, you were on board. 

“It’s not really a fixer-upper,” she’d said while holding tiny Michael in her arms–and you tried not to cringe at what she named her newborn– “but it’s not super, super nice, either.”

You looked at all the printed pictures of the house that Justine had sprawled across her coffee table. “Oh, it's great,” you enthused. “Enough room for both of us plus the kids. Big, big yard.”

Daniel tugged at your dress after that, taking your attention away from your discussion for a few moments for you to tie his shoes. 

“And look at that price,” Justine said. “I could pay for it in cash with my divorce money alone.”

Still distracted by Daniel showing you the scrape on his elbow, you took one last look at the picture of what your room would look like. “Let’s do it,” you’d crazily agreed. 

And so you had. 

Right before you were set to move, the messages from your ex started up. 

“I messed up. I was scared. I just didn’t know how to handle everything.”

“Please answer me.”

“I missed you. I shouldn’t have left. It’s just been so stressful.”

“Did you change the locks to the apartment?”

He sent a picture of the two of you sitting together on the couch of your old apartment, smiling and looking happy.

“Please. I still think about you all the time.”

The messages fucked you up for a while. You considered responding to him. You even considered staying in Virginia. Your mind replayed all of the good times together, and hope bloomed in your heart that it could be like that again. With you getting a degree under your belt, the future awaited you. You imagined all those times he’d promise you a diamond ring and told you to just continue being patient, he’d give you the life you’d always dreamed of. 

Then you remembered. You remember feeling so confused all the time, and so tired, and so unhappy. Deseree, glad as she was to be back in contact with you again, was one huge part in helping you decide to move. She didn’t like Michael. 

“Any time you’re feelin’ guilty for simply talking to your friend of, like, a decade–that’s a red flag. This isn’t a bad thing.”

And you felt simultaneously glad to have all of the confusing experiences with Michael well behind you while also feeling entirely unwanted and discarded. Even though you willingly left your birth-state out of your own free will, it’d just…it’d just be nice to not feel like everything you touched turned to fucking rust. It’d be nice to not feel like you had to be someone else entirely just to be likeable. It’d be nice to not feel like a freak. 

But at least you had Justine and her kids. And there was time to create a new you somehow, a different persona. You found a job. And you found another job. And after sending your transcripts to the local university there, you got in. 

If no one else would accept you, the university at least did.

***

Somehow, Sy remains entirely quiet during your…stories. Besides a few moments of tightly-clenched teeth and a small accident from squeezing his styrofoam coffee cup with too much force, he’s stoic.

“...And I guess you know where it picked up after that,” you quietly finish.

You let the silence extend so indicate to Sy that you’re finally done rambling. Of course, you could share even more stories (you have almost two-years’-worth of them), but you covered the basics. But when Sy doesn’t say anything after several long moments, you can't help but to nervously fill the quietness with more words.

“I sound really stupid sayin’ everything out loud,” you mutter, still stuck gazing out the window. “And I know what you’re gonna say, that it’s horrible to talk about myself like that, but c’mon. Seriously. It’s just like…Hearin’ this out loud…Like, if it were anybody else, I’d look at them and be like, why did your dumbass stay so long with a guy like that? Why didn’t you just leave?”

In your peripheral vision, you see Sy shift. That’s when you finally turn in your chair to face him.

“Oh, Sy, your–Your neck’s red,” you murmur while scrunching your eyebrows together in worry.

Still, he doesn’t speak. 

“...Are you okay?”

He takes a deep breath in through his nose, taking in and letting out so much air you can hear it. “I’m havin’ a real hard time justifyin’ not huntin’ his ass down right now and killin’ him.”

You frown and look down at the table. “Yeah, well. You don’t need the homicide charge.”

“It’d be worth it.”

It’s quiet again as invisible needles begin stabbing your eyes. Luckily, Sy has stretched out his hand to rest palm-up in the middle of the table. You take hold of his fingers the instant you start to soundlessly cry.

“It’s just really hard, still,” you say, your voice cracking, “because it wasn’t like he, like, abused me or anything, but I still feel like there’s all this–”

“Y/N,” Sy interrupts. “He did.”

You sniff and wipe your face with your free hand. “He didn’t. It was all just a bunch of mind-fucks. Non-stop mind-fucks.”

“I gotta tell you, I–Y/N, baby. I’m–” Sy cuts himself off and squeezes your hand. You’ve never heard him stutter like this before. “He did.”

You glance away.

“He knew what he was doin’.” Sy shakes his head, and for as angry as you know he is, his voice remains so soft with you. “He knew what he was doin’, Y/N. It was abuse. All of it. And he shouldn’t get away with havin’ treated you like that. Especially–especially–the coercion to get you to do shit you didn’t wanna do. He should–That fucker should–” Sy shakes his head again. 

Your mouth opens at the passion Sy’s showing, then it snaps shut. “It was literally such a long time ago,” you reply, but Sy is persistent.

“Don’t matter how long ago it was,” he replies, his tone brooking no argument. “It’s got you here cryin’. He shouldn’t get away with it. He won’t.”

“God, I’m so sorry.” You let go of Sy’s hand to wipe your cheeks with two hands.

“What exactly are you sorry for?”

You shrug. “Just…All of this. It’s just so cliché. It’s your first day here, and you’re already havin’ to deal with a shitty ex-boyfriend of mine.”

“I’m from Smalltown, USA, too, Y/N,” he chuckles mirthlessly.

“Yeah, but it seriously feels like it’s all the same with the people in my life,” you mutter. “Justine…Cole…my dad, who you’ll meet tomorrow. It just seems like it’s always something with me. And you’re always stuck helping out.”

His voice is adamant when he says, “I want to.”

With your eyes mainly dry again, you sniff while nodding at Sy. You know this. It takes a lot of reminders, but you know this. He wants to help you, to take care of you. He's in your corner. 

“I’m usually a lot better about this topic. I think sharing so much all at once like that...that was rough. Because now I can hear how bad it was, but when it was actually going on, it was like…I just couldn’t get it. I still think there are things I maybe still don’t get to this day.”

Sy nods at you. “Sad to say, the world’s full of shitty people. Not your dad–who I’m sure is a right ray of sunshine–” he interrupts himself as you playfully kick him under the table– “Shitty people do shitty things.”

You begin fanning your eyes. “Yeah.”

“And they find genuine people like you to use ‘cause they think they can get away with it.” Sy leans back in his chair and crosses his arms across his broad chest. “That’s where I come in.”

You and Sy have had a similar conversation before. When you’d had what was probably one of your worst emotional breakdowns ever, Sy insisted that you talk everything out, and on your bed with his arms wrapped tightly around you, you had. 

It was the first real time you started to realize that even though you’ve been a common denominator in a lot of the failed relationships you’ve had in your life, you haven’t been at fault or anything. It’s more of the fact that you seem to attract people who take advantage of you.

Sy had said it’s because you’re a genuine person. You still say it’s because you’re naive. 

But you’re getting better. 

Still, you don’t know what Sy’s implying. Is he going to pick a fight with Michael tonight? 

“What exactly does that mean?”

“We’ll just see how he behaves,” Sy murmurs evasively before unfolding his arms. 

You nod and then look away. Sy eventually taps his boot against your shoe, and you look back at him questioningly. His eyes are focused on you, his face is open, and he’s just…so devastatingly handsome.

“Hey. Thank you for sharing all that with me,” Sy says so softly it's almost a whisper.

“Oh,” you utter in surprise. “Yeah. Of course. It's not that I meant to, like, hide stuff or anything like that. It's just…” You trail off and briefly glance outside. 

“I get it.”

You take a few moments to compose yourself. “It makes me really sad to think about. Like, to really think about. And, you know, that it’s taken so long for me to figure it out. Like, to take those memories and analyze them from an entirely different viewpoint. And it sucks. I feel like I’ve wasted so much of my life.”

“Mm,” Sy murmurs. “Well, I feel like mine’s just beginnin’.”

The expression he gives you can’t be described as anything but admiring, and the moment is tender while you stare at each other across the table. Your eyes are windows, and he's looking within, seeing every single part of you. Loving every part of you.

And he’s still here.

Sy lets out a shaky breathe and then stands up. After widening his arms, he clears his throat. "Come here," he says quietly. "Please."

Almost for his sake as well as yours, you stand up, go to him, and let him wrap his arms around you. He squeezes you with a soft sort of power, and in his embrace, you feel his apology. I'm sorry you had to go through any of that.

"I love you," you whisper into his shirt.