wipes away my tears, cradling my head against his shoulder.
“When you ran after me last night, I swear I had no intention of hurting you. I was upset and angry. And sometimes when I feel that much emotion, something inside of me just snaps. I don’t remember the moment I pushed you. But I know I did. I did. All I was thinking when you were running after me was how I needed to get away from you. I wanted you out of my way. I didn’t process that there were stairs around us. I didn’t process my strength compared to yours. I fucked up, Lily. I fucked up.”
He lowers his mouth to my ear. His voice cracks when he says, “You are my wife. I’m supposed to be the one who protects you from the monsters. I’m not supposed to be one.” He holds me with so much desperation, he begins to shake. I have never, in all my life, felt so much pain radiating from one human.
It breaks me. It rips me apart from the inside out. All my heart wants to do is wrap tightly around his.
But even with everything he just told me, I’m still fighting my own forgiveness. I swore I wouldn’t let it happen again. I swore to him and to myself that if he ever hurt me again, I would leave.
I pull away from him, unable to look him in the eye. I walk toward my bedroom to try and take a moment to just catch my breath. I close my bathroom door behind me and grip the sink, but I can’t even stand up. I end up sliding to the floor in a heap of tears.
This isn’t how this was supposed to be. My whole life, I knew exactly what I’d do if a man ever treated me the way my father treated my mother. It was simple. I would leave and it would never happen again.
But I didn’t leave. And now, here I am with bruises and cuts on my body at the hands of the man who is supposed to love me. At the hands of my own husband.
And still, I’m trying to justify what happened.
It was an accident. He thought I was cheating on him. He was hurt and angry and I got in his way.
I bring my hands to my face and I sob, because I feel more pain for that man out there, knowing what he went through as a child, than I feel for myself. And that doesn’t make me feel selfless or strong. It makes me feel pathetic and weak. I’m supposed to hate him. I’m supposed to be the woman my mother was never strong enough to be.
But if I’m emulating my mother’s behavior, then that would mean Ryle is emulating my father’s behavior. But he isn’t. I have to stop comparing us to them. We’re our own individuals in an entirely different situation. My father never had an excuse for his anger, nor was he immediately apologetic. The way he treated my mother was much worse than what’s happened between Ryle and me.
Ryle just opened up to me in a way that he’s probably never opened up to anyone. He’s struggling to be a better person for me.
Yes, he screwed up last night. But he’s here and he’s trying to make me understand his past and why he reacted the way he did. Humans aren’t perfect and I can’t let the only example I’ve ever witnessed of marriage weigh in on my own marriage.
I wipe my eyes and pull myself up. When I look in the mirror, I don’t see my mother. I just see me. I see a girl who loves her husband and wants more than anything to be able to help him. I know Ryle and I are strong enough to move past this. Our love is strong enough to get us through this.
I walk out of the bathroom and back into the living room. Ryle stands up and faces me, his face full of fear. He’s scared I’m not going to forgive him, and I’m not sure that I do forgive him. But an act doesn’t have to be forgiven in order to learn from it.
I walk over to him and I grab both of his hands in mine. I speak to him with nothing but naked truth.
“Remember what you said to me on the roof that night? You said, ‘There is no such thing as bad people. We’re