Page 122 of Fake Dating My Best Friend

My throat tightens. “So you cheated on her?”

He flinches, guilt flickering across his face before he looks away. “I couldn’t face it, all of it. The fear, the way I kept coming up short. And I didn’t know how to tell your mom that. So instead of dealing with it, I avoided it.”

He braces one hand against the window frame. “I let myself get too close to someone else. I let her become my escape, the place I went to forget how much of a failure I felt.” He exhales sharply, shaking his head. “It didn’t go that far. But it was still a betrayal.”

“When your mother caught me,” he continues, voice quieter now, “she gave me a chance to fix things. But I didn’t take it. Leaving felt easier than waiting for the day she finally realized I didn’t deserve her.”

He turns back to face me. “For years, she asked me to at least come see you and Conner. Just once. But I refused. Told myself you’d all be better off without me.”

“We weren’t,” I whisper.

He nods slowly, staring at his hands like they hold all the years he lost. “I know that now.” His voice cracks, raw and stripped bare. He crosses back to his chair.

“I was too ashamed to face any of you. I couldn’t forgive myself, but I also couldn’t make myself feelworthy enoughto look at you.”

I swallow past the knot in my throat. “What about after?” I press. “You remarried. Had two children. So why are you still here? Still alone?”

A humorless laugh escapes him, his head tilting back against the chair. “Because I was trying to outrun my guilt. Start over like none of it ever happened.” He scrubs a hand over his face, his exhaustion almost physical. “But it doesn’t work. You don’t get to start over when you’re still carrying all the same broken parts of yourself.”

His jaw clenches. “As soon as things got real, when things weregood, I felt it creeping in again. That voice in my head is telling me I didn’t deserve it. That it was only a matter of time before they figured out who I really was.”

His fingers flex, then curl into fists. “So I checked out. Told them I didn’t love them anymore. And eventually, we divorced.”

I stare at him, really seeing him for the first time.

Deep lines carve shadows into his face, his skin sallow under the dim overhead light. His eyes are dull, hollow, like he’s been fighting a battle so long he forgot what winning even looks like.

This isn’t the monster from my childhood memories.

This is just a sad, broken man who’s been his own worst enemy.

Maybe it’s because he’s still my dad. Maybe it’s because his loneliness is so stark, soundeniable.But something in me aches—for the life he’s wasted, for the years lost, for the way pain has settled into him like an old companion. Even after everything, it still hurts to see him like this.

“It wasn’t until the second divorce that I finally went to therapy,” he says, his voice barely above a whisper. “That’s when I realized I built a life where nobody could reach me. Never let myself love fully. Never let myself live fully. And now I’ve got this hollowed-out version of everything. Perfectly safe. Perfectly empty.”

Something sharp lodges in my chest. I reach for the glass of water on the coffee table, needing something to do with my hands. The cool surface grounds me as my thoughts race.

Isn’t that exactly what I’m doing with Asher?

I’m not ready for this. Not for this broken-down version of the man who used to lift me onto his shoulders. Instead, I’m staring at a mirror, a version of myself twenty years down the road if I keep running.

What if I end up like this?

My breath catches, and I set the glass down too quickly, water sloshing over the rim.

Do I want to someday sit in an empty apartment, telling someone about all the regrets I carry? Do I want to look back and wish I’d been brave enough to reach for what I wanted? Do I want to spend my days watching life pass by, never discovering where my story with Asher might lead?

No.

I’d rather someday say I tried. That I was brave enough to face my fears head-on instead of letting them drive. I’m afraid of getting hurt—of course I am. But what terrifies me more is never loving fully. Even if things with Asher don’t end the way I hope, at least I’ll be able to say I was brave enough to find out.

That I learned. That I grew. That I lived.

I was wrong all this time. The unbearable pain isn’t risking love and losing it. It’s never loving wholeheartedly at all. And being afraid of losing Asher is not worth never having him at all.

I blink rapidly, fighting back tears. The revelation washes over me like a wave.

“I’ve started trying to make things right with them. My other kids. Their mom. It’s slow, and it’s messy, but I’m trying.” He exhales, slow and heavy. “And now, I’m reaching out to you and Conner. Because I want to do better. Be better. I just . . . hope it’s not too late.”

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