I Made Loving You a Bloodsport
hi everyone ! I’ve been going through a lot of shit lately and I used that to create some sad shit to cope, to look forward to better days.
I hope you guys enjoy it and if there are any grammatical errors no there aren’t. You didn’t see that 😋
Everything is fictional, or is it based on my life? 🤨 I guess we’ll never know
Tony Perry x Reader
TW: unfaithful?
Words: 7,190
I remember exactly how it felt in my hands.
Just a folded piece of paper, tucked between old setlists and random receipts in one of Tony’s shoeboxes. We were supposed to be packing. New apartment, fresh start, all that. I was literally on the floor in our bedroom in an oversized t-shirt, hair up, dust on my leggings, doing that thing where you tell yourself you’re being productive even though you’ve spent ten minutes rereading an old Polaroid. I only opened it because I thought it was a lyric sheet. His handwriting is messy but familiar. My name is usually the prettiest thing he writes. Except it wasn’t my name. It was hers.
The girl I’d had a bad feeling about from the beginning. The “she’s just a friend,” the “she helped us with promo,” the “why are you being so paranoid?” girl. The one who used to comment under all his pictures with way too many hearts. The one he told me, explicitly, “You have nothing to worry about.” I don’t even realize I’m reading it out loud until my voice cracks over “you’re everything I’ve ever wanted in a partner.” He wrote that, to her. While I was falling apart and he was telling me I was too much.
My chest goes cold first then hot. Then everything blurs around the edges, like someone smeared my whole life with their thumb. I don’t even cry at first. I just sit there on the floor with this stupid letter in my hand like I’m holding somebody else’s life. Someone else’s betrayal. It doesn’t land as real yet. My body is ahead of my brain; my heart is racing, my mouth is dry, that pressure behind my eyes means tears are coming, but my thoughts are just… static.
That night is burned into my head. The time he was weird and distant on tour. The way he snapped at me on FaceTime was because I was “trauma-dumping” on him about my family. The way he made me feel like my depression was this inconvenience he had to carry on top of the band, the schedule, and the fans. The way I went to bed with my phone in my hand, waiting for a “goodnight, I love you” that never came.
Apparently, he was drunk in some other city, some other room, writing about how someone else was everything he’d ever wanted. My fingers finally start shaking. The words blur on the page. I want to scream. To throw the box across the room. To rip the letter into confetti and flush it. Instead, I fold it back in half. Carefully like it’s evidence. I put it on the nightstand next to my engagement ring, then I sit on the edge of the bed and let the tears come.
They’re not dainty movie tears; they’re ugly, hiccuping, chest-caving sobs. The kind where you’re not even crying about just one thing anymore. It’s every time I gaslit myself, every time I told myself I was just insecure, every time I swallowed my intuition because he told me I was “overthinking again.” It all hits at once. I don’t know how long I sit there. Time becomes this stretchy, meaningless thing. At some point, my phone buzzes on the bed next to me.
Ellie:
Are you alive or buried under boxes?
I stare at it for a second, then type with fingers that don’t feel attached to me.
Me:
I found a letter
Ellie:
…okay? a cute one or a bad one
Me:
Bad. its about her
The typing bubbles appear instantly.
Ellie:
FaceTime. now.
I almost ignore it. I almost can’t bear the thought of saying the words out loud. But if I don’t, they’re going to sit in my chest and rot. I hit video. Her face pops up, hair in a messy bun, glasses on, some random reality show playing muted in the background.
“What happened?” she asks, no preamble.
I hold up the paper.
“He wrote her a letter,” I say. My voice sounds small and far away. “Not just… flirting. A letter. Saying she’s everything he’s ever wanted. Saying he’d do anything to make it work. Talking about ‘the night they spent together.’”
Ellie’s whole expression changes. Her jaw tightens.
“When?” she demands. “Like… when was this?”
“I don’t know,” I say, wiping at my face. “But I know. It was when I was really bad. When he was on that run in Europe, we were fighting constantly. When I kept telling you I had a bad feeling about her, and you said—”
“And I said trust your gut,” she finishes quietly. She sighs, running a hand over her face. “Oh, babe.”
“He told me I was too much,” I say, and now the anger starts to seep in, hot and sharp. “He told me I was stressing him more than the tour. I was literally trying not to die, and he was… what? Sleeping with her and writing love letters?”
“You don’t know if he…”
“He literally says ‘I can’t forget the night we spent together,’” I snap. “What else am I supposed to think he meant?”
She flinches like I slapped her, not him.
“Okay,” she says, voice gentler. “Okay. I’m not defending him. I just… I know you. Your brain is going to chew this until there’s nothing left. You need to talk to him.”
“I can’t,” I whisper.
“Then what, babe?” she asks. “You gonna sit on this and just… let it eat you alive? You’re moving in together. You’re planning a future. You’re wearing his ring. You either bring it to the table or you walk away.”
The word lands heavily.
“I can’t just… throw away seven years,” I say, hating how desperate I sound.
“Seven years or a lifetime?” Ellie counters. “Because if he lied then and he lies now, you’re not throwing away seven years. You’re avoiding throwing away fifteen later.”
I press my palm into my forehead.
“He says he forgot,” I mutter. “He forgot to write it. He forgot sleeping with her.”
“Did he actually say that?” she asks, eyes narrowing. “Or are you rehearsing the excuse you think he’s going to give you?”
I go quiet.
We both know the answer.
“Babe,” she says softly. “I love you. You know I love him too, in my own way, because I’ve seen how he’s shown up for you sometimes. But this? This is… big. You don’t have to decide anything tonight. But you do have to decide you’re not going to gaslight yourself over this. You saw it. It’s real. Your feelings are valid, okay?”
I nod, tears pooling again.
“Call me after you talk to him,” she adds. “Or if you can’t talk to him, call me anyway. I’m not going anywhere.”
We hang up.
The apartment feels wrong. Too quiet. Too full of our life together photos on the walls, his jackets over chairs, guitar picks on every flat surface. Our future is literally half-packed in cardboard boxes, and suddenly, I don’t know if that future exists. I don’t know how long I sit there before I hear the lock turn. His key is in the door. The familiar shuffle of his boots in the entryway. A bag hits the floor. The little off-key hum he always does when he thinks no one’s listening. My whole body goes rigid.
“Babe?” he calls. “You home?”
My throat tightens to the point of pain.
“In here,” I manage.
He appears in the doorway a moment later, hair pushed back under a beanie, hoodie half-zipped, one side of his face still slightly pink from the cold outside. He smiles when he sees me, that easy, familiar curve of his mouth that used to make my heart do stupid flips. It does nothing this time.
“You look like you wrestled a box and lost,” he jokes, then his eyes flick to the nightstand.
To the folded letter. To my engagement ring beside it. I see it in slow motion the way his face changes. The way the color drains. The way his mouth opens, then snaps shut like he’s physically biting back a reaction.
“Where did you find that?” he asks quietly.
There it is. No denial. No confusion. Just straight to that.
“In your shoebox of ‘random crap from tour I swear I’ll sort through one day,’” I say, my voice too steady, too calm. It almost scares me. “Right under an old setlist and a hotel keycard. Great filing system, by the way.”
He runs a hand over his face, jaw clenching.
“Okay,” he says slowly. “Okay. Just… let me explain.”
“Explain what?” I ask, something in me snapping. “Explain how you slept with her while I was going to war with my own brain? Or explain how you wrote her some fucking love letter about how she was everything you ever wanted in a partner while I was begging you to just not hang up on me when I was crying?”
His eyes squeeze shut for a second. When he opens them, they’re already shiny.
“It wasn’t a love letter,” he says weakly.
“I read it, Tony,” I say. “I read it. There’s literally a line where you say you’d do anything to make it work with her. What was that supposed to be? A Yelp review?”
He flinches as I hit him.
“I was drunk,” he says, voice low. “I was… I was fucked up. Everything was fucked up.”
“Oh, so that makes it better,” I laugh, a sharp, broken sound. “You weren’t just an asshole, you were a drunk asshole. Cool.”
“I’m not saying it makes it better,” he snaps back, some of his own anger surfacing. “I’m trying to give you context.”
“I don’t need context, I need the truth,” I say. “Did you sleep with her?”
The question hangs in the air, heavy and suffocating.
He looks at the carpet. The letter. Me.
“Yes,” he says finally, the word barely audible.
Something in my chest physically hurts. Like a cord snapping.
“How many times?” I ask.
“Once,” he says quickly. “Just once. That night.”
“That night when you hung up on me because I was ‘too much,’” I say, putting the pieces together out loud. “That night you told me you needed space, that tour was ‘already stressful enough.’”
He swallows hard.
“I was angry,” he says. “I was… I felt like everything was falling apart. The band, you, me, I—”
“So you fucked her,” I cut in. “As… what? Stress relief? Revenge? Charity?”
His face twists.
“Don’t do that,” he says, voice raw. “Don’t make it sound like it was… I’m not proud of it, okay? I’m—”
“You’re what? Sorry?” I spit. “Sorry you did it, or sorry I found out?”
“Both!” he explodes, loud enough that I flinch. He immediately softens. “Both,” he repeats more quietly. “I swear to God, I am so fucking sorry. I hated myself right after. I still do.”
“Not enough to tell me, apparently,” I say.
“I thought…” He drags both hands through his hair. “I thought if I told you, it would destroy you. You were already hanging on by a thread, and I was the asshole who cut it. So I told myself it was… a mistake. A one-time thing. Something I could bury and make up for by being better.”
“You told yourself you could lie better,” I correct. “You let me stand next to her. You let me feel like the crazy, insecure girlfriend while you knew exactly why my gut was screaming.”
He closes his eyes, jaw trembling.
“I swear I never saw her again after that,” he says. “I cut it off. I blocked her. I stopped answering. That letter…” he nods toward the nightstand “I never even sent it. I wrote it drunk and ashamed, and I shoved it in a box because I couldn’t stand looking at it.”
“That doesn’t make it less real,” I whisper. “You still felt it enough to write it.”
“I was projecting,” he says desperately. “I was… I don’t know. I was trying to convince myself there was some big romantic reason I’d fucked up instead of admitting I was just being selfish and cowardly. I was in a dark place.”
“I know,” I say, and suddenly I’m laughing again, but it’s this hysterical, painful sound. “We both were. The difference is, I didn’t go sleep with someone and then write them a Hallmark card about it.”
He winces.
“I don’t remember half of what I wrote,” he says. “I swear to you, when I saw it just now, it felt like remembering something from another life.”
“Well, congratulations,” I say. “You just nuked this one.”
Silence.
He takes a step closer, hands out like he’s approaching a wounded animal.
“Baby…”
“Don’t,” I snap. “Don’t call me that.”
He stops.
“Okay,” he says, voice shaking. “Okay. Just… tell me what you want me to do.”
“I want you to go back in time and not do it,” I say. “I want you to tell drunk, shitty tour-Tony to go to bed instead of going to her room. I want you not look me in the face and tell me I was crazy for feeling what I felt. I want you to not propose to me with this still rotting in a box under our bed.”
He swallows hard, eyes glassy.
“I can’t do any of that,” he says softly. “All I can do is tell you the truth now. And ask, beg, if there’s any way, any tiny fucking chance, that we can work through this. Because everything you said about us? Surviving hell, getting better at fighting, showing up? That’s real. I didn’t fake the last seven years. I didn’t fake us. I didn’t fake asking you to marry me.”
“But you did fake being faithful,” I say. “You did fake being honest.”
He bows his head. A tear slips down his cheek.
“I don’t expect you to forgive me,” he says. “I don’t even know if I deserve it. But please don’t throw away everything we are because I was the worst version of myself one night.”
“It wasn’t just one night,” I say quietly. “It was everything that came after. Every time I asked, ‘Are you sure nothing is going on with her?’ and you made me feel insane. Every time I told you I felt like something was off, and you told me I was ‘stressing you out.’ That’s not just a mistake, Tony. That’s a pattern.”
He sinks onto the chair across from the bed like his legs have given out.
“I know,” he whispers. “I know. And I have been trying, since then, to be better. To be there. To show up. That doesn’t erase what I did, I know. But it’s not like I just kept… being that guy.”
I stare at him.
He looks wrecked. Pale, eyes red, hands twisting in his hoodie sleeves like he doesn’t know what to do with all this energy. This is the man I love. The one who’s held my hand in hospital waiting rooms. Who helped me pack the first time I escaped my parents’ house? Who has seen me break down on the bathroom floor and sat next to me in silence. And he’s also the man who wrote that letter. Both can be true.
“I don’t know if I can marry you,” I say finally.
It’s like I’ve physically punched him.
He inhales sharply, eyes going wide.
“Please don’t say that,” he chokes.
“What do you want me to say?” I ask, tears spilling again. “Yes, let’s ignore this and walk down the aisle as if nothing happened? I’d be lying every time I looked at you. Every time we fought. Every time I saw a girl in your backstage photos. I’d always be wondering, is this going to be another letter in another box I find in ten years?”
He stands up again, like he can’t stay still.
“So what?” he demands, panic bleeding into anger. “You just… end it? Seven years, gone, because I was a fucking idiot once?”
“Stop saying ‘once’ like it was a fender bender,” I snap. “You stepped out of our relationship. You rewrote our story in your head and didn’t even give me the courtesy of letting me decide if I wanted to be in that version.” He drags his hands down his face.
“So what do you want?” he asks, voice breaking. “Do you want me to move out? Do you want the ring back? Do you want me to disappear? Because I’ll do it. I’ll do whatever you need me to do. I just… need to know.”
The ring feels heavy on the nightstand. I look at it. At the light catching on the stone. At the little engraving he insisted on inside the band: we survived. Did we really?
“I need space,” I say finally, the words tasting like metal. “I need… time. Away from you. Away from this apartment. I can’t even tell what’s grief and what’s fear right now. If I decide in this state, I’m either going to cling or burn it all down, and I don’t trust either impulse.”
He nods, eyes shining, jaw clenched so hard I can see the muscle jumping.
“Okay,” he says, hoarse. “Okay. I’ll… I’ll go stay with Vic for a while. Or a hotel. Whatever.”
“I’m not asking you to leave your own home,” I say automatically, then stop. “Our home. Whatever this is.”
“You can,” he says. “If it makes it even one percent easier to breathe, you can.”
His eyes flick to the ring again.
“And the engagement?” he asks, so quietly I almost don’t hear him.
I stare at it.
The version of me from two hours ago would have slid it off dramatically and tossed it in his lap. The version of me right now feels… tired. I'm so tired. I pick it up. For a second, I think I’m going to put it back on out of muscle memory. My fingers twitch that way. Instead, I walk over to him and hold it out. His hand shakes as he opens it. I drop the ring into his palm. It looks small there. Fragile.
“I can’t wear this right now,” I say. “It feels like a lie. That doesn’t mean it’s over forever. I don’t know what it means. I just know I can’t pretend nothing changed.”
A tear spills over and drops onto the ring, darkening the metal for a heartbeat. He closes his hand around it like it’s burning him.
“Okay,” he whispers. “Okay.”
We stand there, two people who built a life together, staring at each other like strangers.
“I’ll pack some stuff and get out of your way,” he says, almost mechanically. “You… you can stay. Keep the apartment. I’ll figure it out.”
“Tony,” I say, softening despite everything. “I’m not… kicking you out. I’m not punishing you.”
He gives a short, humorless laugh.
“Feels like justice, honestly,” he says. “I hurt you. You get the safe place. That’s how it should be.”
He brushes past me into the hallway. I hear drawers opening, zippers, the dull thud of a duffel tossed on the bed. I sink back down onto the mattress, numb. A few minutes later, he’s back in the doorway, bag over his shoulder, beanie now in his hand. His hair is a mess where he’s been running his fingers through it, the way he does when he’s overwhelmed. He looks at me like he’s trying to memorize everything. My face. This room. This version of us.
“I love you,” he says. No drama. No flourish. Just three words that used to feel like a promise and now land like a question.
“I know,” I say, voice shaking. “I just don’t know if that’s enough.”
He nods once, eyes wet.
“I’ll text you when I get to Vic’s,” he says. “Just so you know, I’m safe. After that… you tell me what you’re okay with. Or not. I’ll follow your lead for once.”
He turns to go, then hesitates.
“And if you… if you decide you’re done,” he says quietly, back still half-turned. “If you decide you can’t do this anymore… I won’t fight you. I’ll… I’ll let you go. Even if it kills me.”
My chest cracks open.
“Then why didn’t you let me go when you did this?” I ask, tears spilling again. “Why didn’t you give me that choice then?”
He closes his eyes, as if the words physically hurt.
“I was a coward,” he says. “I’m trying not to be one now.”
He walks out.
The door clicks shut behind him.
I sit in the silence, surrounded by cardboard boxes, a folded letter, and the outline of a life I’m not sure belongs to me anymore. For the first time since I picked up that letter, I inhale all the way into my lungs. It hurts. But it’s real.
I don’t know what’s going to happen. If we find some way through this, or if this is the beginning of the end. I don’t know if seven years is something you can repair after a crack like this, or if it’s kinder to let it collapse and walk away from the rubble. All I know is that for the first time in a long time, I’m not pretending I’m okay when I’m not.
And whatever happens next, it’ll be from the truth, not from a lie buried in a shoebox under our bed.
Four weeks after he moved out, I still reach for his side of the bed when I wake up. I hate that. The first week is survival mode. I cry, sleep, don’t sleep, forget to eat, eat nothing but toast and cereal. I go to work, nod when people talk, pretend my life isn’t sitting in boxes at home waiting for a verdict. Every time my phone buzzes my stomach drops like I’m in an elevator. He doesn’t bombard me. He just sends proof-of-life texts.
Tony:
At Vic’s.
I won’t contact you unless you reach out first, like you asked.
I love you. I’m sorry.
I don’t answer.
The second week, Ellie practically moves in. She brings groceries and stupid memes and sits on the couch with me while we watch trash reality TV. “This is good,” she says, mouth full of popcorn. “Nothing makes you feel better about your life than watching people throw drinks at each other on a yacht.” Sometimes I laugh. Sometimes I cry. Once, she finds me in the kitchen at 2 a.m., staring at the letter on the fridge like it might rearrange its words if I look long enough.
“Have you talked to him?” she asks gently.
I shake my head. “I don’t know what to say.”
“What do you want?” she asks. “Not what you think I want. Not what your mom would say. Not what the internet would say. You.”
I lean on the counter.
“I don’t know,” I admit. “Part of me wants to set all his shit on fire and block his number. Part of me wants him to show up at the door and say all the right things and fix it. Another part of me just wants… quiet.”
She nods, not pushing.
“Then ask for quiet,” she says. “But don’t stay in limbo forever. Limbo is just torture with better branding.”
The third week, my therapist raises an eyebrow when I tell her everything.
“You know I’m not going to tell you what to do,” she says. “But I’m going to ask you something, and I want you to answer honestly: if this were a patient describing this situation to you, what options would you lay out for her?”
“I’d tell her she doesn’t have to decide right away,” I say slowly. “That she’s allowed to be angry. That she’s allowed to leave.”
“And?” she prompts.
“And that… reconciliation is possible,” I force out. “If both people are willing to do the work. If there’s honesty. If there’s real change, not just guilt.” She nods.
“Exactly,” she says. “The moral high ground isn’t ‘dump him immediately.’ The moral high ground is honoring your reality. That might mean leaving. That might mean trying. That’s your call. What you can’t do is pretend nothing happened.”
“I’m so tired,” I whisper.
“I know,” she says softly. “But you’re also stronger than you were three years ago. You left your parents. You rebuilt your life. You started this relationship, and you can also decide how it continues or if it doesn’t.”
Later that night, I stare at my phone for a long time. My thumb hovers over his name. I don’t owe him anything, I remind myself. But I owe myself clarity. I type before I can overthink it.
Me:
Can we meet? Neutral place. No pressure talk. I just… need answers.
The three dots pop up almost instantly, go away, come back.
Tony:
Anytime. Anywhere. You name it.
I stare at that.
Me:
The little coffee place on 9th. Thursday. 6 pm.
Tony:
I’ll be there.
Thursday at 5:55 p.m. I’m sitting at a corner table, hands wrapped around a mug that’s still too hot to drink, heart trying to drum its way up my throat. The bell over the door jingles at 6:02. I know it’s him before I look up. He looks… smaller, somehow.
Not physically he’s still all broad shoulders and tattoos and beanies but the energy is different. His hoodie hangs looser. His eyes have that hollow tired that doesn’t come from just missing a few nights of sleep. He looks like someone took the shine and turned the dimmer down. He spots me, stops for half a second like he’s bracing himself, then walks over.
“Hey,” he says.
“Hey.”
He doesn’t try to hug me. He doesn’t try to kiss my forehead like nothing’s changed. He sits across from me, hands flat on the table, like he’s showing he’s unarmed.
“Thanks for meeting me,” he says.
“Don’t thank me yet,” I answer.
He huffs out this humorless almost-laugh.
“Fair.”
There’s a silence that feels huge. The espresso machine hisses in the background, someone laughs too loud near the door, a song plays that we once made out to in a car. Of course. I clear my throat.
“So,” I say. “Have you… been seeing her?”
His head snaps back like I’ve slapped him.
“No,” he says instantly. “No. Absolutely not. I haven’t talked to her since that night. I blocked her. I told management not to hire her for anything the band does. I…” He stops, jaw tightening. “The last time I said ‘no, nothing is going on with her’ I was lying. I am not lying right now.”
Something loosens a fraction in my chest.
“What have you been doing?” I ask. “Besides crashing at Vic’s and sending me tragic apology texts.”
He looks down at his hands.
“I stopped drinking,” he says.
The words surprise me.
“Like… stopped?” I ask. “As in… stopped?”
“As in, I went to a meeting with my cousin,” he says. “As in, I’ve been going three times a week since I left. As in, there’s currently a chip in my pocket that says ‘21 days.’”
He pulls something out of his hoodie pocket. It’s a little bronze token, edges worn from other people’s thumbs, the words One Day at a Time engraved in the center.
I stare at it.
He shrugs, embarrassed.
“I know it sounds like a cliché,” he says. “Rockstar goes to AA, very original. But I needed… something. A container. Somewhere to put all the shit in my head that wasn’t just on your shoulders.”
“You could have done that before,” I say quietly.
“I should have,” he agrees. “But I didn’t. Because I was arrogant and scared and thought I had it under control. I didn’t. You knew that way before I did.”
I trace the rim of my mug.
“Therapy?” I ask.
He nods.
“Twice a week,” he says. “Individual. She’s mean. I like her.”
I almost smile.
“That tracks.”
He breathes out through his nose.
“She asked me if I was more ashamed of cheating or of getting caught,” he admits. “And I couldn’t answer at first. That messed me up.”
“What did you land on?” I ask.
“Cheating,” he says. “Getting caught… forced me to actually face what I did. But the shame is about the moment I decided to step out. The moment I decided my discomfort was bigger than your trust.”
I watch him, trying to see if this is performance or real. The guy across from me now is not the defensive, cornered man from three weeks ago. His shoulders are hunched, his eyes clear, his voice steady even when it shakes.
“I’m not here to… win you back,” he says, surprising me. “I mean, obviously that’s what I want with my whole stupid heart, but I know I don’t get to decide that. I’m here because you asked for answers, and I owe you all of them. No spin. No ‘I was drunk.’ Just… the truth.”
I swallow.
“Okay,” I say. “Then I need to know… why. Not ‘I was stressed.’ Not ‘I was drunk.’ Why her? Why then?”
He flinches but nods, like he was expecting the punch.
“She was easy,” he says, raw. “Not in the shitty, slut-shaming way. I mean… she didn’t know the worst parts of me. She knew the stage version. The fun guy. The charming guy. The one who buys shots and makes jokes. With you, I was… all of it. The depressed mess. The anxious control freak. The scared little kid who shuts down when people raise their voices. And I didn’t know how to be needed that much without resenting it. That’s not your fault. That’s my fucking wiring.”
Tears prick my eyes, but I blink them back.
“So you punished me for needing you,” I say.
He closes his eyes.
“Yeah,” he whispers. “I did. I felt trapped. By tour. By fans. By your family. By your pain. By mine. Everywhere I turned, something wanted a piece of me, and instead of setting boundaries or figuring out how to say ‘I can’t hold this right now,’ I ran to the first person who made me feel… light. Wanted without work. It was selfish. It was cowardly. It was the worst version of me.”
The honesty hurts more than any excuse would have.
“And after?” I ask. “Why didn’t you tell me then? Why propose? Why build all this… us on top of that night like it wasn’t quicksand?”
He looks absolutely wrecked.
“Because I was afraid if I told you, I’d lose you,” he says simply. “And I couldn’t imagine my life without you. So I told myself I’d work so hard, be so good, that it would… weigh out. Like some fucked up emotional math. I’d spend the rest of my life making it up to you and never have to hurt you with the details. That was my plan. It was stupid. It was unfair. You deserved the choice from day one.”
We sit in that for a long moment.
“I don’t know if I can ever fully trust you again,” I say finally. “Not in the same way. Not like before.”
He nods.
“I don’t think you should,” he says. “I don’t even trust myself like before. That naive version of us, the one that thought ‘we love each other, so we’re safe’ it’s gone. And maybe that’s… okay. Maybe we build something different. Or maybe we don’t. But we can’t go back.”
“You still want to get married?” I ask, wary.
He smiles sadly.
“I still want to wake up next to you when I’m seventy and complain about my knees,” he says. “But if marriage is too big right now… I’ll take anything you’re willing to give. Friendship. Distance. Time-limited trial contract with an option to renew.”
Despite myself, I snort.
“Idiot,” I mutter.
He smiles, a little.
“Your idiot,” he says softly. “If you want me. If not, I’ll be your ghost. Whatever hurts you least.”
That does it. Tears spill over before I can stop them.
“I hate you,” I say, voice cracking. “I hate what you did. I hate that you made me doubt myself. I hate that I still love you so much it physically hurts.”
“I know,” he whispers, eyes wet too. “You have no idea how much I wish I could take the hate part away and leave the love.”
I wipe my face with the back of my hand.
“Here’s what I know,” I say slowly, feeling my way through the words. “I know I can’t just snap my fingers and forgive you. I know I don’t want to keep you in my life like this, where every interaction is me interrogating you in my head. I know I’m not ready to put that ring back on. But I also know that when I imagine my future, you’re still… there. Somewhere. And I don’t know if that's a habit or hope.”
He nods like each sentence is a nail in his own coffin.
“So what do we do?” he asks.
I take a deep breath.
“We slow everything down,” I say. “No moving back in. No wedding planning. No ‘we’re fine’ posts. We… start over. If we start at all. As two people who care about each other and are both in therapy and both thoroughly fucked up. We go to couples counseling. We talk about the ugly stuff. We see if there’s anything left that can survive in the daylight.”
He looks like I’ve handed him a glass of water in the middle of the desert.
“I can do that,” he says quickly. “I want that. I’m already seeing someone individually; I can ask her for referrals for couples. Or we can find someone together. Whatever you want.”
“I also need you to understand that this isn’t a guarantee,” I add. “Going to therapy isn’t the down payment on getting me back. It’s… the bare minimum if you even want to apply for the job.”
He actually laughs, a wet, broken sound.
“Understood,” he says. “I’ll bring my resume and three references.”
“You’re so stupid,” I say, but there’s a tiny smile trying to fight its way onto my mouth.
He reaches across the table, then stops, hand hovering.
“Can I…?” he asks.
It hits me how unusual that is. How many times in the past he just assumed access to me because we were us. This simple act of asking feels… new. Careful.
I look at his hand, at the little tremor in his fingers, then place mine on top. His breath catches.
His palm is warm. Familiar. My thumb fits into the crease it always has. My heart lurches like it remembers the route.
“We’ll try,” I say quietly. “That’s all I can promise. We’ll try.”
He squeezes my hand, once, like a vow.
“That’s more than I deserve,” he whispers. “But I’ll take it.”
Trying is not glamorous.
There’s no montage.
There are Tuesday evenings spent in a therapist’s office with bad art on the walls, both of us sitting on opposite ends of the couch like teenagers in detention. There are questions that make my skin crawl: “When did you first stop feeling safe?” “What did you tell yourself to justify staying?” There are moments where my anger comes out ugly and sharp and I expect him to snap back, and instead he just sits there with tears in his eyes and says, “You’re right. I did that. I’m sorry.”
There are things I learn about him I didn’t know. The way his parents treated each other like roommates who occasionally exploded. The way he learned, young, that if he was charming and funny enough, people would overlook the mess. The way touring warped his sense of reality. None of it excuses anything. But it gives shape to the monster under the bed.
We talk about my stuff too. How my parents’ manipulation set me up to tolerate too much. How I equate being abandoned with dying. How my idea of love is tangled up with survival.
Our therapist Dr. Shah, tiny and terrifying looks between us one session and says, “You two know you’re not just rebuilding a relationship, right? You’re rewriting the rulebook you both grew up with.”
Some nights, I leave her office hopeful. Some nights, I go home and cry in the shower. Some nights, I text Tony and tell him I can’t see him for a few days because I need to not have his eyes on me while I’m bleeding emotionally. He always responds the same way:
Tony:
Okay. I hear you.
I’ll be here when you’re ready.
He doesn’t show up uninvited. He doesn’t send flowers or grand gestures. He just… shows up consistently to the hard stuff. To the ugly conversations. To himself.
I notice little changes. He drinks coffee at shows now instead of whiskey. He texts me photos from meetings: a circle of chairs, a whiteboard with “YOU ARE NOT YOUR WORST DAY” scrawled across it, the one month chip in his palm. He doesn’t romanticize the struggle; he doesn’t use it as a redemption arc. He just does the next right thing, over and over.
One night after therapy, we end up walking in the park near my apartment. It’s cold, our breath coming out in little clouds. Our hands brush once, twice, then finally link like they’re tired of pretending they don’t know how.
“Can I ask you something?” I say.
“Anything.”
“If we make it through this,” I say slowly, “do you think you’ll ever feel… forgiven?”
He thinks about it.
“I don’t know,” he admits. “I think… I’m learning forgiveness isn’t a finish line. From you or from myself. It’s… a choice I’ll have to keep making. To be better. To not use what I did as a reason to hate myself so much that I give up trying. To not use your forgiveness as a get-out-of-jail-free card. If we make it, it’ll be because we both keep choosing each other and ourselves. Not because we reached some magical ‘all good now’ point.”
My throat tightens.
“That’s… a really annoyingly mature answer,” I say.
He smiles, bumping his shoulder into mine.
“I have an annoyingly mature therapist,” he says. “She’s ruining my whole reserved and mysterious vibe.”
We walk in comfortable silence for a while. A dog rushes past us, leash trailing, its owner apologizing breathlessly. Kids shriek at the playground. Life continues, indifferent to our drama.
At my building entrance, we stop.
“Do you want to come up?” I ask.
His eyes search mine.
“As your ex-fiancé? As your boyfriend? As your… what?” he asks gently.
“As the guy I’m trying with,” I say. “Nothing more. Nothing less.”
He smiles, soft and a little sad.
“I’d like that,” he says.
Upstairs, it’s familiar and strange to have him in the space again. He stands in the middle of the living room like he’s afraid to touch anything. I toss my keys in the bowl and kick off my shoes.
“You can sit, you know,” I say. “You’re not a vampire that needs to be invited onto the couch.”
He huffs out a laugh and drops onto the far end, leaving a canyon of cushion between us. We talk. About nothing and everything. About a podcast I’ve been listening to. About a riff he’s stuck on. About how weird it is to sleep alone after years of unconsciously adjusting to another body. At some point the canyon narrows. Our knees bump. My head ends up on his shoulder like it remembers the indent.
It’s not a grand, sweeping reconciliation. There’s no soundtrack swell. It’s just two tired people who’ve seen each other at their worst choosing, one small moment at a time, to stay. Later, when he leaves, he pauses at the door.
“I, uh,” he says, scratching the back of his neck. “I asked Dr. Shah about the ring.”
I raise an eyebrow.
“Oh?”
“She said I should put it somewhere safe and not look at it like a countdown,” he says. “That if there’s a day where it makes sense to ask you again, I’ll know. And if there isn’t, that’s… an answer too.”
“Smart woman,” I say.
He nods.
“So I put it in the guitar case I use the least,” he says. “Figured that way, if I do ever pull it back out, it’ll be because I remembered it on purpose. Not because I tripped over it.”
There’s something about that that settles in me. No pressure. No timeline. Just a maybe. A someday, if.
“Good,” I say softly. “That’s good.”
He opens the door halfway, then looks back.
“Can I…” he starts, then stops. “Never mind.”
“What?” I ask.
“Can I hug you?” he asks quietly.
It’s ridiculous that the question makes my eyes sting, but it does. I step forward. His arms go around me in that way they always have a full body, no space, like he’s trying to memorize the shape. I breathe in his smell of soap, coffee, a hint of his cologne. It feels like coming home to a house that’s been renovated. Same foundation. New walls.
When he pulls back, he doesn’t kiss me. He just presses his forehead to mine for a second.
“I’m proud of you,” he says. “For how you’re handling this. For how you’re choosing yourself. Even when it means maybe not choosing me.”
I swallow hard.
“I’m proud of you too,” I admit. “For not running. For standing still in the mess. For… meeting me in the work.”
He smiles, small and luminous, eyes glassy.
“Then whatever happens,” he says, “at least we know we didn’t give up on ourselves.”
After he leaves, I sit on the couch for a long time, hugging my own knees, feeling… not healed. Not fixed. But steadier.
We’re not back to the couple everyone envied. I don’t know if we’ll ever be like that again. Maybe that’s the point. Maybe the version of us people envied was built on a story we told ourselves about being unbreakable. Now we know better. We’re breakable. We broke. We didn’t shatter.
The next morning, my phone buzzes.
Tony:
Made it to my meeting.
Thinking of you.
Have a good day, okay?
I stare at the screen, then type:
Me:
I’m thinking of you too.
One day at a time, right?
The reply is instant.
Tony:
Yeah.
One day at a time.
With or without me, you’re gonna be okay.
But I really hope I get to be there while you are.
For the first time since I found that letter, the future doesn’t look like a tunnel or a cliff. It looks like a road.
Crooked. Messy. Full of potholes.
But a road we might, just might, be able to walk together again side by side this time, with our hands intertwined
