Daddy Issues

70 - Careful

'So... now what?'

When the both of us finally stopped crying and we managed to pull ourselves back together a little, we sat down on my bed, leaning our backs against the wall.

It felt good to hold him again. But it didn't feel the same as before. How could it? The trust I felt for him was shattered so harshly, I don't know if I can ever feel the same again. Even if I know now that he never wanted to leave me.

'I don't know,' Dan mumbles defeatedly. 'If we try anything, if she finds out that you know... she'll post it.'

'Are we even sure she'd do it?' I ask heatedly. 'Maybe she was bluffing.'

'I mean, she was very convincing. She told me that she'd post it if I hadn't broken up with you by that night.'

I remember that he seemed upset from the moment he got home. Completely different from the way he left for work in the morning. It didn't make any sense then.

'I thought I could have... one more dinner with you,' he says softly. 'You had cooked, remember? I thought that was so sweet. I wanted to have a few more good moments with you. But I couldn't keep it together. I'm so sorry that I made you feel like... Like you weren't right for me.'

I swallow. I hate to think back to that night. I was devastated. I guess in some twisted way, it's good to hear that Dan was broken up about it too. That he never wanted to hurt me like that.

But I've only just learned all this new information. I can't make up my mind about it yet. How I feel about everything that happened now. How I feel about him. I need to focus on one thing at a time or I'll lose my mind.

'Did you see the video?' I ask him. 'Did she show it to you?'

'She did,' he says demurely. 'I mean, not the whole thing, but enough to know that it was real.'

'Was I like, recognizable?'

Dan looks over at me and rubs his face in the way he always does when he's uncomfortable or frustrated.

'Yeah,' he says reluctantly. 'You were recognizable.'

I can't imagine how he must have felt when Mom showed him that video. He must have been shocked that she had something like that. And worse, use it against me.

And even just to see your girlfriend having sex with someone else must have been... uncomfortable. At the very least.

'How have you been?' I ask him softly. 'All of this must have been hard on you too.'

He slides his hand over his tired race one more time and looks at me. The answer is already obvious before he feels me anything.

'Fuck, I hated myself. Every night, I saw your face. The way you looked when I... told you all those horrible things. I missed you. I missed you every day.'

It is a relief to find out that he never stopped loving me. That he was hurting too. But it makes me feel sad for him at the same time. Not only did he have to miss me. He also had to live with the guilt of hurting me like he had. When he hadn't even wanted to.

I move closer to him and take his hand into mine. He looks down at our entwined hands and then up at me. I can see my own mix of emotion mirrored in his eyes. The sadness for having been separated for so long. The joy in being able to hold each other again. The love that never really went away. But also the wariness. Because too much has happened to be able to just go back to how it was. And with that video, too much is still standing between us.

But holding him right now, it's a comfort to us both, I think. So I don't let go and smile at him when he closes his fingers around mine.

'I got a cat.'