Page 74 of After Everything
I didn't hate him. I'd told him that, and it was true. I could even see him becoming someone worth knowing again. Someone doing good work, helping people, trying to be better.
But that didn't mean I could trust him. Didn't mean I could risk letting him back into my life in any real way.
Did it?
I started walking home, hands shoved in my pockets, mind spinning.
My phone buzzed. Jess.
How did it go? Are you okay? Do I need to come over? Do I need to kill him?
Despite everything, I smiled.
I'm okay. I'll call you later. Promise.
Her response was immediate:
I'm holding you to that. Love you.
Love you too.
I put my phone away and kept walking. The city was waking up now—more people on the streets, cafés filling up with the Saturday brunch crowd, the weekend energy that made everything feel lighter than it was.
I'd sat across from David. I'd told him everything I needed to say. I'd listened to him apologize, watched him take responsibility, seen the person he'd become.
And I'd walked away.
Not because I hated him. Not because I couldn't forgive him.
But because I didn't know what came next, and that was okay. I didn't have to know. Not today.
I had my life. My work. My friends. My morning runs and my NP career and the small apartment I'd made my own.
I had me.
And maybe that was enough.
For now.
CHAPTER 24: DAVID
Isat back down after Emma left.
My coffee had gone cold an hour ago, but I stared at it anyway. The café had filled up around me—couples ordering lattes, friends laughing over pastries, someone working on a laptop in the corner. All normal Saturday morning things.
I'd just had the most important conversation of my life.
And I didn't know what it meant.
Emma had listened. Really listened. She'd told me her truth—painful, brutal honesty that had gutted me. And she'd seen me. Acknowledged that I'd changed. Said she didn't hate me anymore.
But she hadn't forgiven me. Hadn't said we could be friends, or that she wanted to see me again, or that there was any possibility of anything more than the professional relationship we'd built over the past nine months.
She'd said she didn't know what we were now.
And she was right. I didn't know either.
But for the first time in three years, there was something other than just guilt and regret. There was... possibility. Maybe. Somewhere down the line.
