Page 17 of What Broke First
Sarah tilted her head. “You don’t get points for leaving a mistake you shouldn’t have made in the first place.”
“I know. I’m not asking for points.”
Sarah didn’t speak for a moment. Then: “Do the kids know?”
“I haven’t told them yet. I want to make sure I can back it up with consistency before I start dangling hope.”
A bailiff called their names. Sarah stood first, smoothing her blazer, then turned back.
“No promises today, Matt,” she said, smoothing her blazer as she turned toward the courtroom. “But if you’re serious... this is a start.”
He nodded and followed her into the courtroom, clutching the cookie box like it was sacred.
That night, he sat on the floor of his aggressively beige apartment, surrounded by takeout containers and Ikea instructions. He had built half of a nightstand and a whole existential crisis.
His phone buzzed. It was a picture from Sarah. Tommy and Emily are on the couch. Both smiling. Each holding a dinosaur cookie.
“They say thank you. So do I. For trying.”
He stared at the message for a long time, then typed back:
“Trying’s all I’ve got right now. But I’m not stopping.”
Then he turned off the lamp, crawled into bed beside the most emotionally unstable nightstand IKEA has ever birthed, and for the first time in months, slept through the night.
The next day, Matt sat across from his therapist. Dr. Colleen had warm eyes and a terrifying ability to ask a single question that undid him for an hour.
“So,” she said, after hearing about court, the apartment, and the dinosaur cookies.
“You ended things with Lily.”
“I did.”
“How does it feel?”
“Like jumping out of a moving car. But I’m on the ground now. Bleeding. Conscious.”
Dr. Colleen smiled lightly. “That’s more honesty than you gave me a month ago.”
“I’m tired of lying. Especially to myself. I feel like I started a renovation project, forgot the blueprint, broke half the tools, and now I’m just walking around the mess, convincing myself it’s progress.”
She tapped her pen against the edge of her notebook. “Matt, you’ve made real progress. But if you’re serious about rebuilding your relationship with Sarah, even if it’s just co-parenting, you might want to consider inviting her here.”
He looked up. “You mean... a session? Together?”
“Eventually. You’re trying to earn back trust, right? Start by creating a space where trust can be spoken, where boundaries are safe. She might say no. But offering matters.”
He leaned back. His heart thumped like it wasn’t sure which way to run.
“If I ask and she says no, I’m afraid it’ll wreck me,” he admitted. “Right now, she owns my mood. One look from her and I feel like I’ve either climbed a mountain or been kicked off it.”
“She doesn’t own it, Matt,” Dr. Colleen said calmly. “You’re just handing it to her. You need to build an emotional foundation that doesn’t collapse every time she blinks. You’re not just showing up for her approval. You’re showing up because it’s who you want to be.”
He nodded slowly.
“She’d never agree.”
“You don’t know that.”
