Love At An Impasse

2 people, love each other deeply, will never be together, sit down for a hard talk.

Frank had been Peter’s best friend since middle school.
They met over a locker dent and a stupid argument neither of them could later remember. Peter was the one who could turn anything into a story. Frank was the one who stayed.
By the time they were adults, their roles were set. Peter moved first. Frank followed steady and close behind.
When Peter met Courtney, it was obvious almost immediately that this was different.
Not because Peter changed.
Because she didn’t hesitate.
She laughed too loud at his jokes the first night. Leaned toward him when he talked. Looked at him like she’d already decided. There was nothing guarded about her. No testing. No cool distance. She loved him in the open from the beginning, like it was the most natural thing in the world.
Frank noticed the way Peter straightened around her. The way he softened without realizing it.
At the wedding, when Peter’s voice shook during his vows, Frank believed it.
So did Courtney.
More than anyone.
She built her life around him without reservation. Four children in quick succession. A house that always had people in it. Holidays done properly. Birthdays remembered. She defended Peter in rooms he wasn’t in. She believed in him in ways that felt almost defiant.
Frank was folded into that life early.
She made space for him at the table. Sent him home with leftovers. Put babies in his arms. When Peter forgot to include him, she didn’t. When Peter was distracted, she noticed.
Uncle Frank wasn’t a title someone assigned. It just happened.
There was nothing improper in their closeness. It grew in ordinary ways — late-night kitchen conversations, driveway talks after cookouts, text threads about school schedules and aging parents. Peter was his oldest friend.
Courtney became the other person he trusted without translation.
Fifteen years in, something began to feel off.
Peter had always had a certain restlessness before marriage. Frank had seen it. Dated it. Covered for it in college. But Courtney had steadied him. Or Frank believed she had.
Then there was the concert.
A coworker’s husband attacked Peter near the bar. It was quick and ugly. Security separated them. Peter dismissed it afterward — jealous guy, unstable marriage, misunderstanding.
Frank hadn’t been inside when it happened. He was the designated driver that night, grabbing food before circling back. By the time he returned, the narrative was already shaped.
But he recognized the look in Peter’s eyes. He’d seen it before. The performance of innocence. The casual minimizing.
Frank felt suspicion rise like something he didn’t want to name.
He said nothing.
He had no proof. Only pattern recognition. And he did not want to believe that Peter would jeopardize the woman who loved him the way Courtney did.
Because Courtney loved him absolutely.
That was the part that made it unthinkable.
Over the next decade, Frank grew quieter around Peter. The distance was subtle. Almost invisible. He saw things he couldn’t unsee — a phone turned face down, sudden defensiveness, explanations that felt rehearsed.
He was the only one of Peter’s friends who didn’t know about the affair.
Peter hid it from him.
Maybe because he knew Frank wouldn’t tolerate it. Maybe because Frank was the only one who would go to Courtney.
It was Courtney who kept inviting Frank over. Courtney who checked in when he went quiet. Courtney who made sure he didn’t drift out of their lives.
On Thanksgiving of 2022, she told him.
They stood in the kitchen while the rest of the house hummed with football and children’s voices. She said the woman’s name calmly. The same coworker from the concert. The same woman whose husband had attacked Peter all those years ago.
Ten years.
She said it with an ache in her voice.
But her eyes revealed so much more pain.
Frank felt something cold and violent move through him — not at Peter, not first.
At the look in her face.
She wasn’t furious.
She was shattered.
Not theatrically. Not loudly.
Internally dismantled.
Because she had loved Peter without conditions. Without suspicion. Without backup plans.
And now she didn’t know what parts of her life had been real.
Frank made a decision in that kitchen without saying it out loud.
He would not let her carry this alone.
She didn’t leave Peter then.
She tried to save it.
Therapy. Forgiveness. Rebuilding. She fought for the marriage like someone trying to resuscitate something she believed in. She loved him through the exposure, through the humiliation, through the disbelief.
Frank stayed close but careful. Was always available for anything she needed or wanted. Worried that he was too intrusive or intense with his desire to help. Never positioned himself as alternative. Never hinted at wanting more.
In December of 2024, she finally told Peter to leave.
Even then, she shielded Frank from details.
It wasn’t until March of 2025, driving to and from Blacksburg, that the full weight came out. Long stretches of highway loosened her restraint. She spoke in pieces — manipulation, mean spirited jokes, gaslighting, lies, a decade of carefully maintained deception.
Frank listened.
And something changed.
Not suddenly.
Not romantically.
But slowly, like gravity shifting.
She began to rely on him openly. Daily texts. Always supportive. She leaned on him in ways she never had before. Trusted him with the parts of herself she had once given only to Peter.
He admired her resilience. Her grace with the other woman. The way she shielded the children. The way she refused bitterness.
Somewhere in the steadiness of being there for her, something in him crossed a line.
He didn’t notice when.
Only that one day, loving her wasn’t theoretical.
It was fact.
And by the time he understood it fully, she had become the safest place in his world.
And then, he asked her out. During a drive. That was Frank’s favorite time, in the car with Courtney. He always offered to drive her when she had a long way to go for work. And he was always walking on air when she accepted.
Several things conspired to give him the courage to ask her out. He picked up a gift for her for Valentine’s Day. A book of poetry that he had written about her. He realized the manuscript was not admiration — it was devotion. When he read it, he was shocked at the depth of his feelings. He wanted to surprise her, but she didn’t even know he wrote poetry. How would she react to the flowing praise and deep devotion in his words. He was terrified. That same night, she brought Brian to trivia. Seeing her flirt with Brian destroyed him. He was happy to see her smiling, flirting, having a good time, but not with but not with him — not with someone who felt so hollow to Frank. Not with him, who reminded Frank of her ex. Those two things made him believe that he had to tell her of his feelings.
When he did, she broke down. Completely melted down. Sobbing, screaming, cursing, lurching forward almost as if she was vomiting words. He tried to console her, a hand on her shoulder. She shrieked, screamed “nooooo” and shrunk into the passenger door. At first, the breakdown was not about him, but about the marriage, her career change, the failure that she felt, the failure that she believed that she was. Frank was crying, too. Then she switched to breaking down about him. Saying she could never date someone that she loved as much as she loved him. He was he only person in the last year who had even asked how she was, the only one that she could count on, that she couldn’t lose him. He tried to reassure her that she would not lose him, but it didn’t land.
The next day, he asked her out again, thinking he had corrected her aversion by guaranteeing her that she would never lose him. Thinking he had heard her say that she would go out to dinner with him. She then responded that he hurt her, that he had shown no respect for her and that broke him. Sent him into a spiral that lasted almost a full week. So now they are meeting to talk things through. He is crushed; she is broken. And they both love each other immensely.


Frank and Courtney sat across from each other in her living room. The house was quiet. The kids were gone. They’d agreed to talk—really talk—without interrupting each other.
Courtney gestured to Frank. “You go first.”
Frank’s hands were shaking. He clasped them together, then pulled them apart, then clasped them again. Looked down. Took a breath.
“Okay.” His voice was already unsteady. “I want to make sure that you don’t feel I am manipulating you. I want you to know that what I am going to tell you is not designed to get you to change your mind. I would never do that.”
He thinks he has to say this first.
Of course he does.
He thinks the danger here is that he might manipulate me… not that I might already be bracing myself for impact.
God… he’s shaking.
He always does this — tries to make the ground safe before he steps on it. Like if he clears every possible misunderstanding first, no one can get hurt. Like words themselves are explosives he has to disarm.

He looked up at her briefly, then back down.
“I have run it through my head many times, and I don’t think it is manipulative, and if you feel it is, please stop me and tell me.”
He really believes I might think he’s manipulating me.
Or worse — he believes I might be right.
Why does that hurt my chest like that?
Because he’s terrified of being unfair to me.
Even now. Even when he’s the one bleeding inside.
I don’t think you manipulate, Frank…
I think you give until there’s nothing left and then apologize for breathing.

Frank took another breath. Wiped his palms on his jeans.
“The reason I bring it up is that when I was in Chippenham last month, and they ruptured my femoral artery, I texted you two or three times, asking you to call. I didn’t want to tell you that via text.”
Oh no.
He’s bringing that up.
Of course he is. Of course he’s been carrying that.
I knew this would surface eventually. I just hoped… maybe it wouldn’t. Maybe it would stay buried in the pile of things we don’t talk about.

He swallowed.
“You never called, so I texted you what happened. You called right away.”
Frank’s voice dropped.
“That felt manipulative to me. And I don’t want to manipulate you.”
No.
No, Frank…
You almost died… and what you’re worried about is whether telling me that made me feel forced to care.
You think needing help is manipulation.
You think urgency is unfair pressure.
You think your pain might be an imposition.
A wave of something hot and aching moves through her ribs.
How long have you been carrying that?
How long have you been apologizing for needing anyone?
“I don’t want to manipulate you.”
His voice is so quiet.
He means that.
He means that more than he means almost anything else.
He would rather suffer silently than risk influencing me.
He would rather bleed out alone than make me feel obligated.
Her stomach twists.

Frank wiped his eyes quickly. Already crying.
“I’m still not sure why I asked you out when you explicitly told me that you would never consider going out with me, but I think I have some ideas.”
He looked up at her.
“Courtney, you were the first person that I had asked out since 2015.”
Since 2015.
That’s… nine years.
He didn’t just “not date.”
He stopped asking. Completely.
And then… he asked me.
Why does that feel heavy in my chest?
That wasn’t casual for him.
That wasn’t just dinner.
That was breaking something he decided a long time ago.
I thought he was just… asking.
Awkwardly.
But he was crossing a line he hadn’t crossed in almost a decade.
How much did that cost him?
And he says he has ideas why.
He’s been thinking about it. Turning it over. Trying to understand himself.
So, this mattered to him before he even said it out loud.
Courtney’s stomach tightens.

His voice trembled.
“You know this, we have talked about this, but I am attracted to women that are so much better than me, and they have all been very comfortable rejecting me.”
His voice cracked.
“In 2015, she laughed. It wasn’t mean so much as just the thought of going out with me was funny to her.”
Frank wiped his face with the back of his hand.
So much better than me.
Why does he always say that like it’s a fact… not a feeling?
Like it’s measurable. Proven. Settled law.
Better how?
Better than him?
Better than each other?
Better than… human?
God, he really believes that.
And they were “comfortable” rejecting him…
Comfortable.
Like he expected it.
Like it was routine.
Like it didn’t even require cruelty — just… dismissal.
And then—
She laughed.
Her chest tightens.
Not angry laughter.
Not mocking, he says.
Just… amused.
Like the idea itself didn’t even belong in reality.
Like he had suggested something absurd.
No wonder he stopped asking anyone out.
It isn’t a story to him.
It’s evidence.
Proof of what he already believed about himself.
How many times did that happen before 2015?
How many small confirmations stacked up before one laugh was enough to close the door?
And now he’s telling me this.
Why?
Her throat feels tight.
I don’t want to be part of that pattern.
I don’t want to be another data point in the story he tells himself about who he is.
But I already am.
And he’s crying… not because he’s angry…
but because this is just… how the world has always worked for him.
And he expects me to accept that as normal.
God…
How do you argue with a life someone has already decided proves something?

“And I just couldn’t take it anymore. The rejection, the hurt, the constant beat down just for trying to be loved. No one that I asked out ever saw me as a viable option, as a potential partner, or even as a date. I was never enough for them. I was never deserving of a shot at love for them. Nothing.”
He was crying openly now.
“A man can only take so much of it in a lifetime. The pain of being lonely was easier to bear than the pain of rejection. So, I decided that I would not ask anyone out ever again.”
He pressed his palms into his eyes hard, as if he could physically stop the tears.
“I came to a grudging acceptance that I would live and die alone.”
His hands were trembling.
Live and die alone.
The words land with a dull, irreversible weight. Not dramatic. Not exaggerated. Just… settled. Like something he filed away years ago and learned to live inside.
Her chest tightened.
He isn’t describing a fear.
He’s describing a decision he made to survive.
Not hope abandoned in a moment of despair.
Hope… evaluated… measured… and deliberately set down because it hurt too much to carry.
A man can only take so much of it in a lifetime.
He believes that. Completely.
Like rejection is a finite substance. Like every no carved something out of him until there was nothing left that could withstand another one.
And loneliness… he chose loneliness.
Not because he wanted it.
Because it was the lesser injury.
Her stomach turned.
What kind of accumulation of pain does it take for isolation to feel safer than being seen?
How many moments of standing in front of someone, waiting, exposed, only to be quietly ruled out… before a person decides never to stand there again?
He’s crying like this is simply the cost of understanding reality correctly.
Like this is maturity.
Acceptance.
Wisdom earned the hard way.
Not tragedy.
I came to a grudging acceptance that I would live and die alone.
There’s no drama in his voice. No attempt to make her feel anything.
That might be what makes it unbearable.
He isn’t asking for comfort.
He isn’t asking to be told he’s wrong.
He’s just explaining the structure of the world as he experienced it.
And somewhere inside that structure… he made room for her.
That realization hits harder than the words themselves.
If loneliness was safer than rejection…
then asking her out wasn’t just vulnerable…
It was abandoning the one protection he had left.
Her chest tightened further.
And he is trembling now — not because she rejected him…
but because he allowed himself to hope again at all.
Because he broke his own survival rule.
Because he tried… one more time… after deciding he never would.
And she was the one he tried for.
The weight of that settles heavily behind her ribs.
He is grieving something she didn’t even know he sacrificed to reach her.
And he’s telling it like it was inevitable.
Like anyone in his position would have reached the same conclusion.
Her throat felt tight.
How long had he been carrying that quiet certainty?
How long had he already believed the ending of his own life story was written?
And why…
why does it feel like she just watched him show her the place where he buried something… and realized she was the reason he dug it back up?


“I tried the “meet women at a bar and hook up play” for a few years. Far more failures than successes, but I felt wrong when I was successful. It’s not me, and I think you probably know that.”
I do know that. I know that is not you.
He shook his head once, small.
“I don’t want something empty. I want it to be real.”
He hesitated, like he was deciding whether he was allowed to say the next part.
“And I guess… I just thought… if anyone truly knew me—really knew me to the point that they might be able to see past all of the things that the others couldn’t—and could see me as capable of being loved… it might have been you. And if it is not you, then I know it will be no one.”
He swallowed quickly.
“Not as an accusation. Not as anger. Just… that’s what I let myself believe for a minute.”
Frank looked directly at her now. His eyes were red, wet.
Her breath stalled.
Not accusation.
Not anger.
Just belief.
That made it worse.
He hadn’t expected her to fix him.
Hadn’t expected her to rescue him.
Hadn’t even expected her to choose him.
He had just… believed she could see him.
Her chest tightened.
He trusted her perception more than anyone else’s.
More than his own.
If anyone truly knew me… it might have been you.
That isn’t pressure.
It isn’t blame.
It’s faith.
Quiet. Terrible faith.
And he let himself hold it — just for a minute.
Her throat felt tight.
Because she does know him.
Probably more than anyone ever has.
She knows how gentle he is when he thinks no one notices.
How careful he is with other people’s pain.

She has seen that.
And still… she said no.
Not because he’s unlovable.
Not because he’s invisible.
Not because she doesn’t see him.
But because seeing him clearly makes the risk unbearable.
Her stomach twisted.
He doesn’t understand that distinction.

If it is not you, then I know it will be no one.
No drama.
No theatrics.
Just a conclusion drawn from evidence.
He isn’t threatening emptiness.
He’s describing the shape of the world as he understands it.
Her chest tightened again — sharper this time.
He gave her the place of final possibility in his life… quietly… privately… without telling her… and without asking her to carry it.
And now he is simply telling her that he did.
For a minute.
Just a minute.
That restraint hurts more than desperation would have.
Her eyes burned.
Because he didn’t fight for the belief.
Didn’t defend it.
Didn’t try to convince her it should still be true.
He just… set it down between them… like something fragile that already broke.
And she doesn’t know where to put that.
Doesn’t know how to hold it…
without feeling like she just watched someone show her the one place they ever allowed themselves hope —
and then quietly close the door on it again.

“For fifty-four years, I have been made to feel worthless, defeated, and beat down by my hopes and dreams. I thought I would never ask anyone out again.”
He paused. Took a shaky breath.
“Then, last summer, I had two strokes. And then last month I almost bled out on the table in the OR. Would have died at fifty-four, unloved, alone, and in the eyes of many, a loser.”
His voice broke.
“I decided that I didn’t want that. I wasn’t as okay with dying alone as I thought I was.”
Her breath caught.
Fifty-four years.
Not one bad stretch.
Not one heartbreak.
A lifetime.
Made to feel worthless.
Not felt worthless.
Made to feel it.
Her chest tightened.
He doesn’t talk like someone exaggerating pain.
He talks like someone reporting weather patterns.
Long-term climate.
Slow erosion.
Beat down by my hopes and dreams.
That landed differently.
Not by people.
Not even by rejection alone.
By hope itself.
Her throat felt tight.
Hope hurt him.
Wanting hurt him.
Believing in a future hurt him.
And still… he kept doing it.
Until he stopped.
Until he decided loneliness was safer.
Her stomach turned.
He really believed he had accepted dying alone.
He built a life around that acceptance.
Structured himself around it.
Two strokes.
Blood loss on an operating table.
A real, physical edge of death.
Not theoretical.
Not poetic.
Real.
Her chest tightened harder.
Unloved. Alone.
He didn’t say that like self-pity.
He said it like inventory.
What would have been true if he died that day.
And that word —
loser.
“In the eyes of many.”
He didn’t even fully claim it himself.
Just… acknowledged that the world would.
Something inside her twisted.
He almost died believing his story was already finished.
That this — being alone — was simply how it ends for someone like him.
And the thing that changed his mind…
…was fear.
Not dramatic fear.
Not panic.
Just realization.
He didn’t want that ending after all.
Her chest rose slowly, painfully.
Which means…
Loving her didn’t just create hope.
It interrupted a resignation he had already made peace with.
She wasn’t just someone he wanted.
She was part of the reason he stopped accepting death as his final shape.
Her hands felt cold.
That is enormous.
Too enormous.
Because now his survival instinct… his reawakening… his refusal to disappear quietly…
is tangled with loving her.
Not dependent.
But entangled.
And she never asked to be that turning point.
Her jaw tightened.
But she also never asked him to accept dying alone either.
And he did that… without her.
So, what is she supposed to do with this?
Gratitude?
Guilt?
Fear?
All of them pressed at once.
Her chest tightened again.
He almost died believing no one would ever love him.
Then lived… and let himself want love… because of her.
That is not pressure.
That is weight.
Quiet, devastating weight.
And the worst part —
He isn’t asking her to carry it.
He’s just telling her… that this is where he is now.
Alive.
Wanting more life.
Wanting connection.
And she is standing directly in the place where that awakening landed.
Her eyes burned.
Because she understands something he didn’t say out loud:
If loving her made him realize he didn’t want to die alone…
Then not loving him back feels — to him — like being returned to that edge.
Even if he would never say it that way.
Even if he would never blame her.
Even if he insists this is only about his own heart.
Her chest tightened again — almost painful now.
He isn’t clinging to her because he fears death.
He fears going back to the version of himself that had already given up on living fully.
And she is the proof that version was wrong. Or is she proof that version was right?
And she has no idea how to respond to that… without feeling like whatever she says will either break him… or bind him.
So, she says nothing.
And the silence feels enormous.

Frank’s voice broke completely.
“And I have grown to love you infinitely more in the last year. I convinced myself that we could be good together, good for each other, and good to each other. It was more than just convincing myself; it became a core belief. We love each other already. That, to me, is the hard part.”
Her chest tightened.
Infinitely more.
He didn’t say it like a flourish.
He said it like a measurement.
A conclusion.
He built a belief around them.
Not a fantasy — a structure.
Something steady. Something real.
We could be good together… good for each other… good to each other.
Her throat felt tight.
Because none of that sounds impossible.
None of it sounds naïve.
None of it sounds wrong.
That’s what makes it unbearable.
We love each other already.
Yes.
That part is true.
That part is exactly why she can’t move.
Because if love is already there…
then losing him wouldn’t just be losing possibility.
It would be losing something that already exists.
Her fingers curled slightly in her lap.
That… is the hard part.
Yes.
It is.
Her eyes burned, but she didn’t move.
Because he sees love as the reason to try.
And she sees love as the reason she cannot risk breaking what is already whole.

He wiped his face again, uselessly.
“So, I asked you out, in spite of you saying you would never go out with me and that hurt you. You told me it did. And then I spiraled.”
He was sobbing now. Not trying to hide it.
“The idea that I hurt you, destroyed me for close to a week. I thought I had ended our friendship. I cried, a lot. I vomited. I haven’t thrown up in years, and I did it multiple times.”
Her body tensed. Instinctually
Not because he asked her out.
Not because he crossed the line she drew.
Because this is what it did to him.
A week.
Crying.
Physically sick.
Over hurting her.
Her stomach twisted.
He wasn’t devastated by rejection.
He wasn’t unraveling because she said no.
He unraveled because he believed he caused her pain.
That difference hit hard.
She had been angry. Defensive. Overwhelmed.
Focused on protecting herself.
He had been… destroyed by the possibility that he damaged something sacred.
Their friendship.
Her throat felt tight.
She never understood the scale of that spiral.
Never imagined it lived in his body like that — nausea, exhaustion, loss of control.
All because he thought he broke something between them.
Her fingers curled slowly.
I didn’t want that, she thought.
I never wanted that.
Guilt pressed in, heavy and quiet.
He fears hurting her more than he fears losing her.
And that… is almost unbearable to hear.

Frank wiped his face with both hands. Tried to steady his breathing.
“We have talked about this; you know that I am attracted to better people than I am. You are no exception to that rule. In fact, you are better than every woman I have ever asked out put together.”
Something in her stomach dropped — slow and heavy.
Not flattered.
She is never flattered when he says things like that.
Weighted.
Because he doesn’t say it like admiration.
He says it like distance.
Like a measurement that can’t be adjusted.
Like a gap that cannot be crossed.
Better than every woman… put together.
That isn’t love standing beside her.
That’s love kneeling.
Her mouth pressed into a thin line.
He still doesn’t see himself as someone who could simply be with her.
Only someone who could reach up… or fall short.
And no matter how many times she tries to pull him onto level ground…
he keeps rebuilding the height difference.
It makes everything feel unstable.
And unfair.
And far heavier than he understands.

He looked at her.
“You are exceptional in every area except one.”
He looked at her again, like he didn’t want to, like the line tasted bad.
“Your ability to reject me. In that, you are just like every other woman.”
A quiet ache moved through her — not from blame, but from hearing herself placed among the people who had hurt him most.
Frank’s voice got quieter. Steadier.
“You have become the most important person in my life. I don’t see that ever changing. I wanted to be there for you during your divorce. I did everything that I could to center your needs, your emotions, your mental well-being.”
You did, and I am so grateful
He blinked hard.
“It wasn’t always easy, because you did not always want to open up. It was hard to know what to do.”
She gave the smallest nod — he wasn’t wrong; she had shut him out at times.

He exhaled.
“But loving you, caring about you, supporting you in the last year has been the most honest thing I have ever done. And the easiest. And I wouldn’t change a thing. It has been an honor supporting someone, caring about someone, and loving someone so deserving of it.”
His voice cracked again.
“And that gave me hope. And for me, hope has always been dangerous.”
She went very still.
An honor.
He didn’t say it like sacrifice.
He didn’t say it like burden.
He meant it.
That mattered to her — more than he probably understood.
Because she never wanted to be something he endured…
or something that cost him more than it gave.
And hope…
Her throat tightened slightly at that word.
He says it like something sharp.
Like something that cuts when you hold it too long.
She understood that.
Hope had nearly destroyed her once too.
And now… somehow…
they had both attached that dangerous thing to each other.
That scared her more than anything else he’d said.

He looked directly at her.
“You tell me you love me, and I believe you. And I love you.”
“And thank you for not saying I love you, just not that way. I suspect you may mean it, but that has always hurt me badly coming from others, it would have destroyed me coming from you.”
Something inside her twisted — because the truth wasn’t that she didn’t love him that way… it was that she didn’t know how deep it ran, and she was terrified to find out.
He swallowed, careful.
“And I know you are protecting yourself. I can see that. I just… I don’t understand why you would think you need protection from me.”
She felt the familiar, silent ache of it — he still didn’t understand she wasn’t protecting herself from him, but from what loving him might cost her if it ever shattered.
His hands shook again.
“I need to understand how to remain safe for you while still being honest about what is true in me. I am trying to conceal what my hopes, my emotions, and failing miserably.”
He took a breath that sounded like it hurt.
“But the fact that you love me and still don’t see me as worthy of a risk kills me. Add in that I think it is a low-level risk, very low level and it just hurts.”
Something in her convulsed — not at his honesty, but at the quiet certainty behind it.
He still thinks this is about worth.
About risk measured logically.
About odds that can be calculated.
And she has no language to explain that what terrifies her isn’t the chance of losing him…
…it’s the certainty of how completely she would break if she did.

Frank leaned forward slightly.
“I have told you that you will never lose me, and you might ask me how I know that. Because right beside you is the only place I want to be. It is the only place that I’ll ever want to be.”
He wiped under his eyes with his thumb.
“You seem not to believe that, and it bothers me that you don’t trust me to know my heart.”
His hands were shaking again.
“And you called me out for not listening to you, for not hearing you, for disrespecting you when I asked you out after you said you would never consider it. And you were right, but I am not the only one in this relationship that doesn’t listen.”
He paused, like he hated saying it.
“You have not heard me promise you that you won’t lose me. Or you don’t believe me, I don’t know which is worse.”
A quiet tension moved through her.
He thinks she doesn’t trust his heart.
That isn’t it.
She does trust his heart.
More than she has ever trusted anyone’s.
That’s what makes this unbearable.
Because she trusted a heart before.
Completely.
Without hesitation.
For twenty-five years.
And that trust didn’t protect her from being destroyed.
Her fingers curled slightly in her lap.
He thinks she doubts him.
But what she doubts… is permanence.
What she doubts… is what happens to people over time.
What she doubts… is herself — her ability to survive losing someone she built her world around.
She hears his promise.
She believes he means it.
She just doesn’t believe she can live through the day it stops being true.
And she cannot explain that without hurting him…
so she stays silent.

He inhaled.
“In the car, when I reminded you that I had told you that I had feelings for you in July, you didn’t seem to remember the conversation.”
Something flickered in her mind — not a clear memory, more like the outline of one.
A moment that had felt too heavy.
Too dangerous to hold.
She couldn’t tell if she truly forgot…
or if she had quietly set it somewhere deep and closed the door.
Not denial.
Not lying.
Just… survival.
Her stomach tightened slightly.
Because if she did know — even dimly — what he was telling her back then…
…then some part of her had chosen not to let it exist.


Frank took another shaky breath.
“Here’s the thing… and I want to be very careful how I say this. This isn’t pressure. And it isn’t a warning.”
He looked down at his hands.
“But I think… keeping us exactly where we are… might carry its own kind of risk too. Not because you’re doing anything wrong. Not because I want something different from you. Just because… when something is never allowed to change… sometimes life changes it anyway. And people don’t mean for distance to grow… but it does.”
He swallowed.
“I’ve seen it before. With other women who told me that we were too close, and they couldn’t go out with me.”
He forced himself to keep going.
“I’m not friends with any of them now. Not due to animosity. Just due to a natural flow. They found someone to date who could provide everything I provided and the things that they did not want me to provide. They did not need me anymore; life just goes on.”
She listened to every word — not just what he said, but how carefully he built the path to say it.
Very careful.
Not pressure.
Not a warning.
He was trying to remove every sharp edge before he even placed the thought between them.
Her fingers rested very still in her lap.
Keeping us exactly where we are… might carry its own kind of risk.
He didn’t say you’re pushing me away.
He didn’t say I’ll lose you.
He didn’t say this will end.
He made distance sound like weather.
Like erosion.
Like gravity.
Something that happens without intention.
Without fault.
That was deliberate.
He was protecting her from blame… even while telling her he was afraid.
Her throat tightened slightly.
Then he shifted to evidence.
History.
Pattern.
Other women.
No anger. No betrayal. No dramatic endings.
Just… drift.
Natural flow.
Life just goes on.
He kept choosing neutral words.
Words that removed accusation.
Words that made loss sound ordinary. Inevitable. Almost impersonal.
That scared her more than if he had sounded hurt.
Because he wasn’t warning her, he might leave.
He was telling her that sometimes people don’t mean to leave… and still disappear from each other anyway.
And he was trying — so carefully — to make sure she understood he wouldn’t blame her if that happened.
Her jaw tightened faintly.
He was describing loss without assigning responsibility.
Which meant he had already imagined it.
Already rehearsed it.
Already made space for the possibility that one day… she might simply not need him anymore.
And he was trying to accept that in advance… so she wouldn’t have to feel guilty if it happened.
Her stomach turned slowly.
He was grieving something that hadn’t happened yet…
and doing it gently enough that she wouldn’t feel accused.
That was the part she couldn’t breathe around.

He shook his head once.
“This is different. You love me. You’ve said that. That matters. I know that. I’m not pretending this is the same. But… I’ve learned that love… doesn’t always stop distance from happening.”
He hesitated again—longer this time—like he didn’t want to say what he was about to say.
“And… I need to be honest about something I don’t want to be true.”
He wiped his face.
“I may have to step back at some point. Maybe not from you… but from being around you in person the way I have been.”
His voice stayed gentle, almost apologetic.
“Not because of anything you’ve done. Not to punish you. Not to make you choose anything.”
He swallowed.
“Just because… I had my wants, hopes, and dreams buried for a year. And now that they’re out in the open, I’m having a hard time burying them again. And I don’t want my hope to turn into something I put on you more unfairly than I already have.”
He shook his head quickly.
“I don’t want to become something you dread.”
The words landed slowly — not all at once, but in pieces she couldn’t stop hearing.
I may have to step back.
Something inside her went very still.
Not leaving.
Not abandoning.
Not disappearing.
Just… less.
Less presence.
Less closeness.
Less of the quiet, steady way he had always been there without question.
Her fingers pressed together slightly.
He wasn’t threatening distance.
He was preparing for it the same way he prepared for everything — carefully, gently, trying to make sure it didn’t wound her when it happened.
That hurt more than if he had sounded angry.
Because this wasn’t reaction.
It was self-protection.
And he almost sounded… sorry for needing it.
Her throat felt tight.
I had my wants, hopes, and dreams buried for a year… and now that they’re out… I can’t bury them again.
She understood that.
He had changed the shape of his life to fit beside her.
Now that the truth had been spoken… he couldn’t un-know it.
Couldn’t un-feel it.
Couldn’t go back to pretending he wanted nothing.
And he was trying to protect her from the weight of that.
Her chest felt hollow.
I don’t want to become something you dread.
That was the part that broke through everything else.
Because she had never dreaded him.
Never feared him.
Never once wished he would be less present in her life.
And now… his love was making him afraid of becoming something she would have to brace herself against.
Her eyes stung.
He was stepping back not because she pushed him…
but because he loved her enough to notice the pressure his hope might become.
And she didn’t know how to ask him not to step back…
without asking him to keep hurting.
So, she said nothing.
And the silence felt like the first inch of distance already forming.

Frank paused. This next part was harder. He looked down at his hands.
“I want to do this as gently as possible, but I want to be honest.”
“You explained that not answering my calls for months was because you did not want to talk about the divorce. You said that you couldn’t call back because the kids were always around.”
He lifted his eyes briefly, then dropped them.
“I believe you, I don’t think you were lying, but I do think that maybe you were trying to protect me from something deeper. There are two reasons that I say this.”
Frank’s voice was so gentle. No accusation. Just sadness.
“One—on the way back from DC in November, you talked for forty-five minutes about the divorce. Laughing, joking, teasing whoever was on the other end that they needed to call more often, it had been a few days, and a lot can happen in those days.”
He blinked, slow.
“That hurt a bit when I could not get you to answer my calls.”
Frank wiped his eyes.
“And I’d also be willing to bet that nothing that you discussed with that person was talked about in front of the kids. So, it seems like you could find time when you wanted to.”
He held up a hand slightly, like he was stopping himself from sounding like a lawyer.
“You obviously owe me no answers, but my weird personality will always wonder why.”
He took another breath.
“Then the night you got back from the snowstorm, Brian called. You told him, let me call you in an hour when I’m in bed.”
He swallowed hard.
“You were exhausted. You should have been sleeping. But you called him with no kids around. You could have done that with me but chose not to. And again, you have every right to communicate however you’d like with whomever you’d like. But both of these hurt me.”
Frank’s voice was still gentle. Still sad. Not angry.
“No explanations needed, but it does make me wonder why you didn’t with me.”
Something inside her went very still when he said Brian’s name.
Not outwardly.
Outwardly she barely moved.
But inside… something tightened, then shifted — like a quiet alignment she didn’t want to look at directly.
He noticed the calls.
He noticed the time.
He noticed the difference.
Of course he did.
Frank always noticed the things that mattered.
Her mind moved quickly — not to deny, not to defend — but to organize, to explain, to make it reasonable.
Brian was just… easier.
Less complicated.
Less loaded.
Talking to Brian didn’t feel like stepping onto unstable ground.
It didn’t feel like something fragile and irreplaceable was being placed in her hands every time she picked up the phone.
With Brian, conversation stayed where she put it.
With Frank… it never did.
Her stomach tightened faintly.
And there was something else — something she did not name, did not examine — a small pull she barely let herself notice.
A flicker of energy when Brian’s name lit her phone.
A lightness that felt dangerously close to anticipation.
Not love.
Not anything that serious.
Just… ease.
Interest.
Movement.
Alive in a way that didn’t ask anything permanent of her.
She pushed that thought away almost immediately.
That wasn’t why she answered Brian’s calls.
It couldn’t be.
This was about safety.
About simplicity.
About not risking the one person she couldn’t afford to lose.
Still…
A quiet, uncomfortable awareness settled low in her chest.
If Frank asked her to explain the difference…
she didn’t know if she could do it honestly — not because she was hiding something from him…
…but because she hadn’t fully admitted it to herself.

Frank straightened up a little. His voice got slightly stronger.
“I’ve told you already that I can’t be around you and Brian. It crushes me. I can’t even think of you texting him when we are together without breaking. And I realize that is not fair.”
He let out a breath through his nose.
“Part of my visceral reaction is that I didn’t like him when I met him. And I never would have thought he would be someone you would be drawn to.”
His hands clenched.
“He seems arrogant, condescending to me at least, maybe not to everyone. He seemed aggressive as a parent, I’m not sure if that is the right word, but I didn’t like it. He seems to always talk about the Marines, like those people who are always talking about what they did in high school.”
His voice thinned, like he was embarrassed by his own honesty.
“And he seems empty, vapid.”
Frank looked at her.
“I might be wrong, but since I formed these impressions before I knew you were dating, when I thought he was married, his ex was there and I didn’t know they were divorced, I think I can realistically rule out that it is about you.”
He paused.
“Although, I don’t think there is anyone out there good enough for you. Me included.”
He shook his head, almost pleading.
“But I think he is a schm – I just don’t like him, and it crushes me that you gave him a chance and could not take a chance on me.”
His voice broke.
“Not a chance that you will lose me, just a chance on me maybe we are a good fit.”

Her first reaction wasn’t anger.
It was disorientation.
Because what Frank was describing — being hurt that she gave Brian a chance but not him — assumed something that had never existed inside her.
There had never been a decision.
There had never been a weighing of one man against another.
Frank did not live in the part of her mind where romantic choices were made.
He lived somewhere else entirely.
Somewhere deeper.
More permanent.
More dangerous to disturb.
So, when he said it crushed him that she gave Brian a chance and not him…
…it felt like he was asking her to explain why she hadn’t turned the ground beneath her feet into the sky.
Two different categories.
Two different emotional languages.
Two different kinds of attachment.
Not ranked.
Not competing.
Separate.
Completely separate.
And yet…
Brian was real to her in a way that existed in the ordinary world.
Attraction. Curiosity. Possibility.
Something that fit inside recognizable shapes.
Frank did not fit inside shapes.
Frank was gravity.
Frank was foundation.
Frank was the person she structured safety around — not risk.
And that was exactly why he had never been an option.
Not because he lacked worth.
Not because he was lesser.
Not because she compared and chose someone else.
But because loving him romantically would require moving him out of the place that made her feel most secure in the world.
And she could not survive losing that.
Even imagining it made her feel unsteady.
So, when he spoke about Brian — dismissing him, analyzing him, hurting over him —
she didn’t feel like she was defending a chosen partner.
She felt like he was trying to step into a space she had never opened…
and then grieving that he wasn’t already inside it.
Her stomach twisted.
Because he wasn’t wrong to hurt.
But he was hurting over a comparison she had never made.
And the terrible truth underneath it all was this:
She did genuinely like Brian.
That attraction existed in the realm of ordinary human risk.
Frank existed in the realm of emotional survival.
And those two realms did not overlap.
Not in her mind.
Not in her body.
Not in the way she had learned to stay safe.
So, hearing him say it crushed him…
didn’t make her feel defensive.
It made her feel helpless.
Because there was no decision she could point to.
No moment she could revisit.
No choice she could undo.
There was only the structure of how her heart had organized people…
…and the unbearable realization that the place she put Frank — the place that honored him most — was the very place that made loving him the way he wanted impossible.

Frank was crying again. Full sobs. He wiped his face, but the tears kept coming.
“I listen to you when you talk. You told me the three things that you wanted from your next relationship—respect, honesty, and to be loved the way you deserve.”
“And that day, driving to and from Blacksburg was the day that my feelings for you started to change. It wasn’t just realizing that I have had all three things for almost thirty years. And the love and respect have only grown over the last year. It was everything. The way you forgave Peter’s affair, when I was hoping you beat the shit out of her. The songs that your daughter put together about how you should be loved. It was slow at first, then fast. The grace you showed the other woman, the songs that I listened to while you slept and realized that I already had much of what was in them, even though I had never thought of you that way. When you told me what you wanted in your next relationship, I realized that I had that for almost 30 years.”
Her breath stalled somewhere halfway into her lungs.
He had been watching her that closely.
Not just seeing her… studying her.
Tracking the small things she barely remembered doing. The moments she survived rather than chose. The grace she hadn’t even been sure she possessed.
Thirty years…
The number pressed against her ribs.
She had lived those years forward.
He had lived them… noticing.
Remembering.
Building something out of moments she never knew were being gathered.
A strange, aching warmth spread through her — not romantic, not simple — something heavier. Something that felt like being seen without permission… but also without judgment.
Her stomach did a slow cartwheel.
Because he wasn’t describing fantasies.
He was describing history.
Their history.
And what unsettled her most… was that nothing he said was wrong.
He had given her respect.
They had trusted each other with honesty.
She had let him love her — fully, freely — in every way that felt safe to her.
And now he was telling her… that was enough to make him fall in love.
Her hands curled slowly in her lap.
I didn’t know…
I didn’t know you were building something out of that…
A quiet, piercing guilt moved through her — not because she had misled him, but because she had lived inside something he experienced as extraordinary… while to her it had simply been survival, friendship, steadiness… refuge.
She swallowed.
What frightened her wasn’t that he loved her.
It was that his love made perfect, rational sense.
And that made it harder — not easier — to hold the boundary she had built to protect them both.

Frank looked directly at her.
“I truly don’t believe that you will find anyone who loves you the way I do. That is not arrogance. You know me, I have no arrogance, no confidence in this subject. I just know it is true.”
“And I also believe that we would be happy, we would be good for each other, we would be good to each other and we would love each other. I believe that I can give you what you have never had. And I know that you can give me what I have never had. And again, not from a place of arrogance. And I am not trying to change your mind or “make you see the light”, just being honest with you.”
Her eyes closed slowly, like something inside her had to brace itself before it could settle.
Of course he believes that.
He always believes the deepest version of things.
He doesn’t hedge. He doesn’t half-love. He doesn’t protect himself with doubt.
That had always been part of what made him… him.
And part of what made this unbearable.
Because he wasn’t pleading.
He wasn’t pushing.
He wasn’t trying to convince her.
He was simply telling the truth as he experienced it — steady, certain, unguarded.
He really thinks we would be happy.
He really thinks we would be good for each other.
He really believes he could give me what I never had.
Her throat tightened.
And maybe he could.
That was the part she never let herself examine for more than a flicker of a second. The thought rose — quiet, dangerous — and she crushed it down before it could fully form.
Because certainty had once been offered to her before.
Spoken softly.
Promised gently.
And it had hollowed her life out from the inside.
Love that feels inevitable is the hardest thing to trust.
Her fingers curled slightly in her lap.
He isn’t arrogant.
He’s not trying to claim ownership.
He’s not trying to win.
He is offering a world he truly believes exists.
And she cannot step into it.
Not because she thinks he’s wrong.
Not because she doesn’t love him.
Because if she lets herself believe he might be right…
she would have to risk needing him in a way she swore she never would again.
And that kind of dependence had nearly destroyed her once already.
Her gaze stayed on him — steady, aching, full.
You might be the safest person I have ever known.
And that is exactly why I cannot let myself lean toward you.
Her chest rose and fell slowly.
If I ever lost, you after letting myself have you…

Frank’s voice got quieter.
“So, I am in Richmond as long as mom is alive. After that, I will likely leave. I’ll probably drift for a few years, trying to figure out whatever is left of my life.”
The word leave settled heavily in her mind.
Not dramatic.
Not emotional.
Just… decided.
He had already pictured a life somewhere else.
Already accepted movement. Distance. Uncertainty.
Something uneasy spread through her — not panic, not even fear exactly… just a quiet dislocation.
He had always simply been there.
Not imposed. Not assumed. Just… present. Steady. Constant in a way she had never needed to name.
Now he was describing a future where that constancy wasn’t guaranteed.
And what unsettled her most was how calmly he spoke about it.
Like it was already real to him.
Her throat felt tight, though she didn’t move.
She hadn’t been thinking about what life would look like if he was gone in a literal, practical sense.
Different city. Different rhythms. Fewer conversations. Fewer shared moments.
But now the image was there.
And it didn’t feel abstract.
It felt… thinner. Quieter. Less anchored somehow.
She kept her face still.
But something in her sense of the world had shifted — just slightly — in a way she couldn’t quite define.


He wiped his face again.
“I am seeing a therapist trying to figure out why I would do something that I know would hurt the only person I ever loved. And trying to figure out why people see me as valueless and worthless when it comes to dating or romance.”
He swallowed.
“Possibly it is because I am always attracted to women who are so much better than me. Maybe I am genuinely unlovable in that sense.”
Frank took a long, shaky breath.
“I am never asking you out again. I am likely never asking anyone out again.”
His voice was almost flat with exhaustion.
“I am not pressuring you. If you had said yes, I would not have pressured you. In some ways, I have been waiting for you for fifty-four years. I would have waited another fifty-four if that is what it would have taken for you to be comfortable.”
Frank wiped his face one more time.
“I am not trying to convince you, don’t want you to feel pressured. I just want to be honest and I want you to be honest with me when you respond.”
Something in her went very still.
Not because of what he wanted from her…
but because of what he had already decided about himself.
Unlovable.
Valueless.
Never again.
He was speaking like a man closing doors quietly… carefully… so no one would feel responsible for the sound of them shutting.
And that unsettled her more than anything emotional or dramatic could have.
Because he meant it.
Not as performance. Not as persuasion.
As conclusion.
Her mind caught on one thing in particular — the waiting.
Fifty-four years.
Another fifty-four.
Not romantic.
Not poetic.
Just… patient endurance stretched past anything that felt humanly reasonable.
A heaviness settled low in her chest.
Not guilt.
Not obligation.
Something closer to the terrible weight of being deeply loved by someone who asks for nothing… and therefore cannot be argued out of what he is willing to give up.
She did not know how to respond to love that removed its own claims.
And she did not know how to respond to a man who was quietly deciding he would never reach for happiness again… and calling that respect.
She stayed silent.
But one thought moved through her with uncomfortable clarity:
He is not protecting me right now…
…he is disappearing in front of me, piece by piece… and calling it kindness.

He looked at her, exhausted. Hollowed out.
“I think we are at an impasse. You can’t go out with me because you love me too much. I love you too much to not go out with you. And I’m not sure how we get past that. Do you have any ideas?”
Frank’s voice dropped to almost a whisper.
“I will never be angry at you, never disparage you. But right now, it crushes every ounce of my soul to look at you.”
The word impasse settled heavily in her mind.
Not conflict.
Not misunderstanding.
Not something to work through.
A stopping point.
A place where love existed… and still wasn’t enough to move anything forward.
Her throat tightened, but she didn’t move.
He wasn’t asking how to fix a problem.
He was asking how to live inside something that had no solution.
And when he said it crushed him to look at her…
…that was the part that landed deepest.
Because he wasn’t saying it to make her feel guilty.
He wasn’t saying it to force a decision.
He wasn’t even asking her to change anything.
He was just telling her what it cost him to stay.
Her chest felt heavy — not with panic… not even exactly with sadness…
…with the unbearable awareness that simply being herself in front of him was causing pain he could not hide anymore.
And for the first time, a quiet, disorienting thought surfaced:
If loving me hurts him this much…
what does staying actually mean for either of us?
She had no answer.
Not for him.
Not for herself.
So she stayed very still… and let the silence hold what neither of them could solve.

He swallowed.
“And I can’t ever see you with Brian again. Ever. That is for my self-preservation.”
He paused.
“I would never ask you to choose, and if you feel like you’d have to choose, then I would say choose Brian, because it’s not my intention to back you into that corner, and if I did, I don’t deserve to be chosen.”
Frank sat back. Completely spent.
“That’s… that’s what I needed to say.”
He looked at her, his face wet, his eyes red.
“Your turn.”
The words self-preservation echoed louder than anything else he had said.
Not anger.
Not jealousy.
Survival.
Something in her chest went very still.
He wasn’t trying to control her.
He wasn’t even asking for anything.
He was telling her the cost of staying close to her life as it actually was.
And then — somehow — he still stepped back even further… telling her to choose Brian if it ever came to that.
Not because he wanted her to.
Because he refused to trap her.
That hurt in a way she hadn’t expected.
He was releasing her… while admitting he might have to lose her… while trying to protect what was left of himself.
Her stomach dropped slowly, heavily.
Because this — this right here — was the outcome she had always been trying to avoid.
Distance.
Careful separation.
Necessary survival.
She had thought refusing him would preserve what they had.
But now she could see it clearly forming anyway… just shaped differently… quieter… more permanent.
Her hands felt cold.
He’s already preparing to step away.
Not from love… from proximity.
From the life where he has to watch me choose something else.
And when he said your turn…
Her mind went completely blank.
Not because she had nothing to say.
Because everything she could say would either hurt him… or bind him… or change something she had been trying desperately to keep unchanged.
And suddenly she understood something with painful clarity:
There was no way to respond without something being lost.
So she just sat there… looking at his face… memorizing the exhaustion in it…
…trying to find words that didn’t exist.



She wiped her face. Took a breath.
Courtney didn’t speak right away.
Her hands were trembling in her lap, fingers twisting together like she could wring steadiness out of them. She felt hollowed out by everything he’d said—by the tears, by the exhaustion in his voice, by the way he’d offered himself without armor.
When she finally lifted her head, her eyes were red but steady.
“I heard everything you said.”
Her voice was quiet, not sharp. Not defensive. Just raw.
“And I need you to understand something before anything else—I am not trying to hurt you. I have never been trying to hurt you.”
I know, I have told you that when I am hurt, it is the result of my feelings, not your actions. You have no responsibility for my feelings.
She swallowed, jaw tightening.
“But I also need you to hear me. Really hear me. Because I don’t think you understand what you’re asking of me.”
She let that sit for a second, watching him, making sure he was listening.
“You say I don’t listen to you. That I don’t believe you when you say I won’t lose you.”
Her voice trembled slightly, but she kept going.
“But Frank—you don’t listen to me either.”
That landed softly, not as an attack, but as fact.
“I have told you, over and over, that I can’t do this. That I’m too scared. That I don’t trust myself. And you keep asking. You keep explaining why we’d be good together. You keep telling me I’m making the wrong call.”
That- that’s not what I am doing, is it? I am just trying to understand her thinking, aren’t I? Am I doing what she says I am? I don’t want her to feel that way about me.
Her shoulders lifted with a breath.
“That’s not you trying to manipulate me. I know that. But it is you deciding that if I just understood correctly, I’d choose you.”
That’s – No, I have already told her that I am not trying to change her mind. Does she have this wrong, or do I? Am I able to look at what I am saying honestly? I never want her to feel any discomfort because of me.
Her eyes filled again.
“And that makes me feel like my fear isn’t valid. Like I’m being irrational instead of wounded.”
That’s not what I’m doing.
The thought rises immediately — not defensive, just confused.
I’m not trying to correct you. I’m not trying to out-argue you. I’m trying to understand how you’re arriving where you’re arriving.
But as she keeps talking, something in him shifts.
You keep explaining.
He does. He knows he does. When he’s scared, he builds frameworks. When he’s hurting, he reaches for logic. He can admit his own fear is irrational — he does it all the time. He knows his catastrophizing, his certainty about dying alone, his belief that he’s unlovable are not airtight truths.
But knowing they’re irrational has never made them disappear.
So when he tells her they’d be good together, when he lays out reasons, he isn’t trying to override her fear.
He’s trying to do for her what he cannot do for himself — calm it with evidence.
And now he sees how that lands.
Like I’m being irrational instead of wounded.
Wounded.
That word sinks in quietly.
He doesn’t think she’s irrational. He thinks she’s terrified. He thinks she’s carrying trauma like a live wire.
But maybe in trying to reassure her, he has treated her fear like a miscalculation instead of an injury.
The realization doesn’t make him defensive.
It makes him smaller.
God, I don’t want to be another man who tells you your feelings are wrong.
He doesn’t want to win.
He doesn’t even want to be chosen that way.
He just doesn’t know how to love her without also hoping.
And he doesn’t know how to hope without trying to explain.

She looked down briefly, then back up.
“You asked about the phone calls. Why I didn’t answer. Why I could talk to Brian but not you.”
Her throat tightened.
“It wasn’t the kids. Not entirely.”
She shook her head once.
“It was you.”
Frank flinched. She saw it. She forced herself to stay steady.
Me? Oh fuck, can I handle this? Do I have a choice now? Can I ask her to stop?
“But not because I didn’t want to talk to you. Because talking to you mattered too much.”
Her fingers pressed into her palms.
“Every time you called, I knew you would ask how I was. And I’d either have to lie and say I was fine, or I’d have to tell you the truth and completely fall apart.”
Her voice thinned.
“And if I fell apart with you… I would depend on you. And I was terrified of that.”
She inhaled shakily.
“With Brian, it didn’t matter. He doesn’t see me the way you do. He doesn’t know me the way you do. I could talk about the divorce, joke about it, even laugh about it, because it didn’t reach the deepest parts of me.”
Talking to me mattered too much.
The words don’t feel like rejection.
They feel like something fragile being placed in his hands.
It mattered too much.
So she didn’t avoid him because he was unimportant.
She avoided him because he was.
Every time you called…
He sees it suddenly — her phone lighting up, her staring at his name, knowing that with him there is no surface-level version of herself. No casual performance. No half-truths.
And if I fell apart with you… I would depend on you.
His chest tightens.
Depend.
That’s what she’s afraid of.
Not him leaving.
Not him hurting her.
Needing him.
With Brian, it didn’t matter.
That stings — but not the way he expects it to.
Because he understands what she means.
Brian is shallow water.
Frank is depth.
And depth requires surrender.
He has never wanted her to feel cornered.
Never wanted to be the place she collapses because she has no other option.
But he also feels something else — something almost unbearably tender.
She was protecting herself from relying on him because she knows she could.
Because she knows he would show up.
Because she knows he wouldn’t flinch.
He doesn’t feel dismissed.
He feels… dangerous.
Not in the way Brian is dangerous.
In the way gravity is dangerous.
If she lets herself fall, she won’t stop halfway.
And suddenly he understands something he hadn’t before:
She isn’t saying he isn’t enough.
She’s saying he’s too much.
That realization doesn’t make the ache disappear.
But it changes its shape.

She paused, and this time she didn’t look away.
“And yes… you’re right. I do like him.”
Her voice didn’t defend it. It didn’t justify it. It just admitted it.
“He’s not deep. He talks about the Marines too much. He can be arrogant. You’re not wrong about those things.”
She swallowed.
“But he’s safe.”
That word came out almost involuntarily.
“Because I don’t love him. Not the way I love you. If it doesn’t work out, I will be disappointed, but I will survive it.”
Her voice cracked.
“If it doesn’t work out with you… I don’t know that I survive that.”
He feels it first in his throat.
I do like him.
There it is. Clean. Undeniable.
Not dramatic. Not defensive.
Just true.
And that truth hurts in a way that isn’t explosive — it’s heavy. Settling. Like something locking into place that he had hoped might still be fluid.
He makes himself breathe.
She isn’t choosing him over me.
She isn’t comparing us.
She’s just… telling the truth.
But he can’t stop the flicker of something small and bitter — not at her, but at the fact that this man, this shallow, easy, surface-level man, gets to exist in the space of possibility.
And I don’t.
But then—
He’s safe.
Because I don’t love him.
That lands differently.
Not triumph.
Not relief.
Something closer to devastation.
She is choosing survivability.
She is structuring her life around manageable loss.
If it doesn’t work out with you… I don’t know that I survive that.
His chest constricts.
He doesn’t feel flattered.
He feels accused by reality.
He has always believed love should make you braver.
For her, it makes her retreat.
And the worst part?
He understands it.
She is not saying he isn’t worthy.
She is saying he matters too much.
And that means the door isn’t closed because he failed.
It’s closed because he is the deepest thing in the room.
That should comfort him.
It doesn’t.
Because what she is really saying is:
I love you enough to never risk you.
And he doesn’t know how to fight that without proving her right.

Her breathing faltered. She steadied it.
“You say the three things I want are respect, honesty, and to be loved the way I deserve. And you’re right. You’ve given me all of that.”
She shook her head slowly.
“That’s exactly why I can’t risk it.”
Tears slipped down and she wiped them away impatiently.
“Because you already give me everything I want. And if we try this and it falls apart, I lose all of it. I lose the one person I trust completely. The one person who has never lied to me. The one person who didn’t gaslight me for ten years and make me question my own sanity.”
He closes his eyes for half a second.
Not because he’s overwhelmed — because he has to slow himself down.
Everything she’s saying makes sense.
That’s the problem.
She isn’t dismissing what he gives her.
She isn’t minimizing it.
She’s naming it precisely — respect, honesty, love without distortion — and then explaining that those things are too precious to gamble.
He feels the ache sharpen.
So I’m not something she doubts.
I’m something she’s afraid to lose. She has said that, I tell her she won’t lose me. And I know she won’t. But she can’t see it.
That should feel like affirmation.
It doesn’t.
Because what it means, in practice, is that the best thing he has ever been to someone is the very reason he can never be more.
He has spent his life believing that if he could just be good enough — steady enough, honest enough, safe enough — someone would finally choose him.
And now she’s telling him he succeeded.
And that success disqualified him.
The word trust echoes.
The one person I trust completely.
He swallows.
He would trade almost anything to be the person she wanted recklessly.
But he understands something painful and undeniable:
She isn’t protecting herself from his failure.
She’s protecting herself from his absence.
And loving her means he can’t argue her out of that fear — because he knows exactly how devastating it would be if she were right.

Her voice hardened briefly at that memory, then softened again.
“Peter promised me forever. Twenty-five years, Frank. He looked me in the eyes and promised me forever while he was lying to me.”
She swallowed.
“So when you say I won’t lose you, I believe that you mean it. I do. But I don’t trust permanence anymore. I don’t trust my judgment. I don’t trust that I wouldn’t miss the signs if something changed.”
Her eyes held his.
“It’s not that I think you’ll leave. It’s that I know people do.”
I won’t. I promise you. I would rather die than leave you. I can’t imagine a world with you. Without us.
Silence settled for a moment.
“You said you can’t see me with Brian again. That it’s for your self-preservation.”
Her face tightened.
“I understand that. I hate it, but I understand it.”
She inhaled slowly.
“But you need to understand something too. I didn’t choose Brian over you. You were never in that category in my mind.”
Her voice broke on that, because she knew how much it would hurt.
“You weren’t an option I weighed and rejected. You were the person I was trying not to lose.”
It hits him in two directions at once.
Relief first.
She didn’t line them up side by side.
Didn’t measure him and decide he came up short.
Didn’t weigh him and choose someone else.
He hadn’t been defeated.
He had been… protected.
But the second realization follows immediately, and it lands heavier.
You were never in that category.
Never even in the realm of possibility.
He doesn’t feel compared anymore.
He feels removed. And that crushes him.
Set apart.
Placed somewhere sacred and untouchable — and therefore unreachable.
The person I was trying not to lose.
He understands what she means. He does.
He knows the tone in her voice when she says his name. Knows the way she leans on him without thinking. Knows he lives in the part of her life that feels stable.
He just never imagined that stability was the barrier.
He never did anything with an eye towards being with her. He supported her because she needed it, because she deserved it, because she was the most important thing in his life.
But the hurt of her revelation that he was never in consideration is deep and intense.
And yet, he knows that he would not change a thing if he could go back in time and start again. Because supporting her is far more important to him than his dreams are.
Even though it moved him out of the game entirely.
There is no anger in him. No resentment.
Only the quiet ache of realizing that he wasn’t rejected as insufficient —
He was disqualified for being too important.
And he doesn’t know whether that is more merciful… or more destructive.

Her shoulders trembled.
“You say we’re at an impasse. That I can’t go out with you because I love you too much, and you love me too much not to.”
She nodded faintly.
“That’s exactly where we are.”
Her lips pressed together.
“And I don’t have some brilliant solution. I don’t have a brave, cinematic answer where I suddenly overcome twenty-five years of betrayal and say yes.”
That is not what I want either. I don’t want you to feel like I am trying to change your mind. Please don’t think that.
She looked exhausted now.
“I am angry. But I’m not angry at you. I’m angry at myself. I’m angry that I’m too broken to be brave. I’m angry that I’m still letting Peter’s damage dictate my decisions. I’m angry that loving you feels like the scariest thing in the world.”
You have nothing to be angry at yourself for. Nothing. You were destroyed by this and you are clawing back the only way that you can.
Her voice dropped.
“And I hate that you’re paying for that.”
It hurts like hell, but there is no price that I wouldn’t pay for your happiness.
She sat back slightly, spent.
“You said if I feel like I have to choose, you’d tell me to choose Brian. That you don’t deserve to be chosen if I’m cornered.”
Her eyes flickered with something fierce.
“That’s not how I see you. Not even a little.”
Her voice softened again.
“But you’re right about one thing. If you can’t be around me when I’m with someone else, then eventually… you won’t be around.”
That realization hung heavy between them.
“The exact thing I was trying to prevent.”
She exhaled shakily.
“Maybe holding the line does carry its own risk. Maybe pushing you away is just a slower way of losing you.”
Her eyes filled again.
“I don’t know how to be brave enough to try. I don’t know how to risk the one person who feels permanent.”
Her words don’t feel like victory.
They feel like standing at the edge of something neither of them can cross.
Maybe pushing you away is just a slower way of losing you.
He feels that settle somewhere deep — not as accusation, not as hope — just as truth.
She sees it now. The cost. The slow erosion.
And when she says he feels permanent…
Something in him softens and breaks at the same time.
He wants to tell her that nothing about him is permanent. That he’s just a man who loves her and is terrified of losing her too.
But he also hears the fear in her voice. Not reluctance. Not indifference. Fear.
He understands fear. He lives with it.
He just can’t make himself live inside it.
So he sits there, eyes wet, and thinks:
If I am permanent to you, why do you feel such a risk around losing me?

She met his gaze fully now.
“I love you, Frank. Not casually. Not lightly. Not because you’re convenient.”
Her voice trembled.
“I love you more than anyone outside of my family. And I am so sorry that I can’t give you what you want. Not because you’re unworthy. Not because you’re not enough. But because I am terrified.”
She swallowed hard.
“I’m not trying to hurt you. I’m trying to survive.”
The last word came out barely above a whisper.
And then she fell silent.
Frank sits in the silence after her last word.
I love you more than anyone outside of my family. I am trying to survive.
He nods slowly—not agreement, not acceptance, just acknowledgment.
Because he finally understands something that destroys him: She loves him exactly as much as he always hoped someone would. And it means nothing. It changes nothing.
He has spent fifty-four years believing that if someone truly saw him, they would choose him. And she sees him. And she won't.
Not because he failed. Because he succeeded.
He stands slowly, feeling older than he has ever felt.
"I should go."
She nods, wiping her face.
They don't hug. They can't. Because everything between them is too breakable now.
And as he walks to his car, he thinks:
This is worse than every rejection before. Because this time, love existed. And still wasn't enough.