I could give him the clean answer —she asked for space and I’m respecting that.That was true and it wasn’t nothing. But it wasn’t everything.
“Because I wanted to,” I said. “That’s the honest answer. I wanted to walk over there and tell her I’d seen her watching. Tell her it was real — that I didn’t know she’d be there, that I wasn’t performing. I wanted to use it.” I looked at Pete. “And that’s exactly the kind of thing she’d see through. She would know. If I went over there and saidI noticed you were watching,she’d hear it as a tactic. Even if I meant it honestly, it would land as leverage.”
“So you let it go.”
“I let it go.” I rubbed the back of my neck. “Drove home. Sat in the lot for a while. Tried to figure out if that was the right call.”
“Was it?”
I thought about it. “I think so. But it’s hard to know, because it doesn’t feel like—” I stopped, reaching for the right word. “It doesn’t feel like winning. Doing the right thing in private, with no one to confirm that you did the right thing. Just you and the choice.”
Pete leaned forward slightly. “That’s exactly what it should feel like.”
“I know that intellectually.”
“You know it in your gut too. That’s why you’re describing it the way you are — not as a sacrifice that cost you something, but as a choice that felt like the correct shape.” He held my eyes. “You’ve been in my office for four months talking about wantingto change. What happened Tuesday night is what change actually looks like.”
I sat with that.
Four months of sessions, journaling, grief group, not picking up the phone at two in the morning. Four months of building different habits — calling Colt when I felt the pull toward a bottle, going for a ride instead of sitting in a room with it, being honest with Dutch about when my head wasn’t right. Repeating that pattern until it stopped feeling like effort and started feeling like what I did.
And then she was in the room and I hadn’t used it. “I still want her back,” I said. “I’m not going to pretend I don’t.”
“Okay.”
“The work is real. But the hope is still there underneath it. Both things are true.”
“Yes.” Pete’s voice was even. “Both things can be true. The work being genuine doesn’t require you to stop hoping. It just requires that the hope isn’t what’s driving the work.”
“How do you know the difference?”
“Ask yourself: if she came to you tomorrow and said she’s made her decision and the answer is no — definitively, forever — would you stop going to the group? Stop seeing me? Stop calling Colt when you need to?”
I thought about it honestly. A version of Holden who knew for certain Bea was never coming back, not in ten years, not ever. “No,” I said.
“Why not?”
“Because I’m different now.” The words came out simple and certain. “I don’t want to be the man who fell apart after Danny died. I don’t want to be the man who drank himself into a blackout and made decisions without talking to anyone else. That’s not—” I shook my head. “That’s not who I want to be. Whether she’s in my life or not.”
Pete was quiet for a moment. “Tell her that. Not tonight, not as a tactic. But when the moment is right.”
“She won’t believe it.”
“Maybe not yet. But there will be a moment when she’s ready to believe it, and you’ll need to be prepared to say it clearly.” He glanced at the clock. “In the meantime, keep going to the group. Keep doing the work. Let it be witnessed by people who aren’t her — people who have no stake in what it means for your relationship.”
“Like Tuesday.”
“Like Tuesday.” He nodded. “That’s progress, Holden. What you did Tuesday — staying, sharing, leaving without making it about her — that’s progress.”
I walked out into the cool afternoon and stood on the sidewalk a moment before heading to my bike.
It was progress. I wasn’t sure it was enough but maybe it was the thing to hold onto right now. Not the outcome. Not whether she’d ever see it or recognize it or decide it mattered.
Just that I’d done the right thing in a room where she was watching. And then I’d walked away.
My phone buzzed before I reached the bike. Glitch —She’s home. Nothing to flag.
I put the phone in my pocket and rode.
