Page 34 of My Best Friend Is Broken
Molly’s words hang in the air between us, and something about the way he says it. So matter-of-fact, like love is both the simplest and most complicated thing in the world, makes my chest tight.
“I do love him,” I say quietly, the admission feeling both terrifying and inevitable. “I think I always have. But I don’t know if what I feel now is... healthy. If it’s fair to him.”
Molly refills our wine glasses, his movements graceful and deliberate. “What do you mean?”
I stare down at the dark red liquid, trying to find the words for something I’ve barely admitted to myself. “When we were eighteen, it felt pure, you know? Just... wanting to be near him all the time, thinking he was the most brilliant person in the world, getting jealous when he talked to other people. I told myself it was just friendship, but...”
“But it wasn’t,” Molly finishes gently.
“No. It wasn’t. And now...” I take a shaky breath. “Now I look at him and he’s so broken, so scared, and part of me just wants to wrap him up and keep him safe forever. But is that love, or is that some fucked-up savior complex? Am I in love with who he is, or am I in love with the idea of fixing him?”
Molly considers this seriously, twirling a loose strand of hair around his finger. “Tell me about before,” he says finally. “Before prison. What was it about him that made you feel that way?”
The question catches me off guard, but the answers come easily. “His laugh. God, his laugh was infectious. You couldn’t help but smile when you heard it. And he was so confident, not in an arrogant way, but like he genuinely believed good things would happen if he just tried hard enough. He used to make these ridiculous plans, like we’d save up money from our part-time jobs and buy a flat in London, or he’d learn Italian and we’d move to Rome. Completely mental ideas, but when he talked about them, they felt possible.”
“He sounds lovely,” Molly says softly.
“He was. He is.” I correct myself quickly. “He defended people. There was this kid at school, Callum, who was getting bullied for being gay. Liam didn’t just tell people to stop. He made friends with Callum, made sure he sat with us at lunch, and invited him to parties. Just... made it clear that picking on Callum meant picking on him.”
“And now?”
I think about Liam curled up on the hospital bed, apologizing for existing. “Now he can barely leave the apartment. He flinches when I move too quickly. He thinks he’s broken beyond repair.”
“Maybe he is broken,” Molly says, and I start to protest, but he holds up a hand. “Let me finish. Maybe he is broken, and maybe that’s okay. Maybe you can love someone who’s broken without wanting to fix them.”
“How?”
“By loving the person he is now, not the person he used to be. By seeing his strength in surviving, not his weakness in struggling. By supporting his healing without making it about you.”
I drain half my wineglass in one swallow. “That sounds incredibly mature and healthy. I’m not sure I’m capable of it.”
Molly grins. “None of us are, at first. It’s a skill you learn.”
“How did you learn it? With Dario, I mean. He’s got his own... issues.”
Molly’s expression softens, becomes almost dreamy. “Dario thinks he’s a monster. He’s convinced that everything he touches turns to poison, that he’s incapable of being gentle or good. But I see how careful he is with me, how he checks three times that I actually want something before he does it. I see him feeding stray cats when he thinks no one is looking. I see him lying awake at night worrying that he’s going to hurt me just by loving me.”
“That must be hard.”
“It is. But I don’t love him despite his damage, I love him including his damage. Does that make sense?”
I think about Liam’s quiet voice asking if I came back, the surprise in it like he genuinely hadn’t expected to see me again. The way he still worries about whether I’m hurt even when he’s the one falling apart. His stubborn insistence on trying, even when trying terrifies him.
“Yeah,” I say. “I think it does.”
“The question is,” Molly continues, leaning back in his chair, “do you love Liam the way he is now? Not the way you hope he’ll be after therapy, not the way you remember him being before, but exactly as he is in this moment?”
It should be an easy question. Of course I love him. I’ve rearranged my entire life around him, haven’t I? But Molly’s looking at me with those sharp blue eyes that seem to see right through bullshit, and I find myself really thinking about it.
Do I love the Liam who can’t go shopping without having a panic attack? The Liam who whispers apologies for things that aren’t his fault? The Liam who looks at me sometimes like he’s not sure who I am?
“I love how gentle he is with my things,” I say slowly. “Like he’s afraid of breaking them, but also... grateful for them? He holds his tea mug like it’s precious. He always folds his clothes perfectly, even the borrowed ones that don’t fit properly.”
“Go on.”
“I love that he still tries to take care of me. Even when he can barely function, he asks if I’m eating enough, if I’m sleeping okay. He notices if I seem stressed.”
“And?”
