Page 58 of My Best Friend Is Broken
“But it’s not what you wanted.”
“No,” he says honestly. “It’s not. And if I’d done what you asked for, it would have destroyed both of us.”
The words hang between us like a confession. He’s admitting that he wanted to do it, at least in that moment. That some part of him was tempted by the idea of claiming me the way I begged him to.
And he’s admitting that he knows it would have been wrong.
“I don’t know how to do this,” I whisper. “I don’t know how to be in a relationship without breaking everything.”
“Neither do I,” he says, and the admission surprises me. “I don’t know how to love someone as damaged as you are without becoming damaged myself. I don’t know how to protect you without controlling you, or how to give you what you need without giving you what you think you want.”
We stare at each other across the kitchen, two people who love each other desperately and have no idea how to do it safely.
The broken bathroom door looms in my peripheral vision, a reminder of how quickly everything can fall apart. How easily love can become something ugly when filtered through trauma and desperation and the basic human need to make pain stop at any cost.
“So where does that leave us?” I ask.
Nicky picks up his coffee, takes a sip, sets it down again. The simple actions seem to take enormous effort.
“I don’t know,” he says finally. “But I know I’m not giving up on us. Even if I don’t know how to fix this, even if we both keep making mistakes, I’m not walking away.”
It’s not a declaration of undying love. It’s not a promise that everything will be okay. It’s just a commitment to keeptrying, keep fighting, keep showing up even when showing up feels impossible.
Maybe that’s what love actually is. Not the grand gestures or perfect moments, but the stubborn refusal to quit even when quitting would be easier.
I look at the broken door, at Nicky’s tired eyes, at the drinks growing cold in both our cups. All evidence of how far we have to go, how much work it will take to build something healthy from the wreckage of our individual damage.
But he’s still here. Still making me tea the way I like it, still sitting at this table instead of running away from the mess I’ve made of both our lives.
Still choosing me, even when choosing me means choosing to stay in the hard work of healing.
“I’m not giving up either,” I tell him, and mean it.
It’s not much. But it’s a start.
Chapter nineteen
Nicky
The waiting room chairs are designed by someone who clearly hates the human spine. I’ve been sitting here for forty-five minutes, and my back is already protesting the combination of cheap plastic and anxiety-induced tension.
This is the third therapist we’ve tried. The first one took one look at Liam’s case history and suggested he might be “better served by a more specialized facility” A code for “too fucked up for my comfortable middle-class practice.” The second one spent most of the session talking about her own theories instead of listening to what Liam actually needed.
Dr. Sarah Greenston comes highly recommended by the private hospital. Trauma specialist, PTSD expert, someone who supposedly understands that healing is messy and ugly.
Fingers crossed, she’s the one and there will be no more hunting around. No more lurking uneasily in different waiting rooms.
I’m never waiting in the car again. Not after what happened at the probation office. Not after realizinghow many more threats I can’t see coming, can’t protect against, can’t eliminate with a gun and some carefully applied violence.
The world is full of people who want to hurt Liam, and most of them don’t look like obvious monsters. They look like probation officers and shoppers and random strangers who might recognize his face from newspaper articles five years old. They look normal until they decide to destroy him, and by then it’s too late.
Nevermind the Wayne Thompsons of this world.
So I sit in uncomfortable waiting room chairs and pretend to read magazines about home improvement and celebrity gossip, while actually listening for any sound that might indicate Liam needs me.
The therapy room door opens with a soft click, and Liam emerges looking... not better, exactly, but different. Less hollow-eyed than when he went in, maybe. Less like he’s carrying the weight of the world on his shoulders.
Dr. Greenston appears behind him, a small woman in her fifties with kind eyes and the sort of calm presence that probably cost her years of training to perfect.
