In some ways, the argument Adam and I had had that morning was the worst one yet. No one had yelled and no one had really cussed, but it had solidified what lingered in the back of my mind. Adam didn’t want to move in with me. At the very least, he didn’t know what he wanted enough to sit down and have an honest conversation about it. And so many realities started popping up in my mind. For four years, we had run on the same basic schedule. I’d had the same basic layout of classes every semester in college, so we’d had the same breaks where we could meet up. We’d had the same date nights in the same sorts of places and he had ordered the same kind of thing every single time. Adam had a creative mind, but he was grounded in routine. And anything that threatened to change that routine always upended him.

Now that I was no longer in college, everything was upending.

I had no idea why I hadn’t seen it sooner. I guessed my anger had clouded my judgment. But looking down on everything, there was nothing I could do about it. My life was progressing and I was moving into adulthood. I was taking a job I wanted, getting an apartment I loved, making plans for my future. Adam was spontaneous in his romance and work but grounded and dependent on routine in his everyday world. I was the exact opposite. I was planned and meticulous in my romance and work but ever-changing in my everyday life.

At least I was now that I had graduated.

This morning’s fight was the worst fight we’d had to date not because of the yelling and what was said but because of the harsh truth it had revealed. And the fact of the matter was that there wasn’t any way to fix it, or change it back. No amount of sex or kissing or dates or apologies would ever bring back the couple we used to be. The worst part about all of it was that we couldn't even discuss it in between our arguments because all it would do was spiral us into yet another fight. Adam and I never fought. It was what I had loved about our relationship so much. But for the past two and half months, all we’d done was argue. We’d fought and picked apart what we’d said and threw it back in the other's face.

And I felt like it would only get worse as time progressed.

He was the one who had told me he wanted to do this, that he wanted us to move in together. He was the one who had woken me up to go apartment shopping. He was the one who had called his father to get a check for the security deposit and the first month’s rent. Now we were nine days out from the move and every single argument we’d had exposed a truth I still hadn’t admitted to myself.

I refused to admit it to myself because Adam needed to step up and tell me himself.

It wasn’t until I heard my office door close that I realized I was staring at my desk and getting absolutely no work done. I whipped my head up and looked at Ryan, and sighed as he took a step into the room. His eyes locked with mine as he came around my desk, cocking his hip up to sit on the edge of it.

“You’ve been staring at that same file since you came in an hour ago,” he said.

And the tears unleashed once again.

I felt another handkerchief settle into the palm of my hand as I bowed my head. The tears were silent this time, streaming down my face without a sound to be spoken of. It took too much energy to make noise. It took too much energy to cry properly. I bowed my head and allowed gravity to take the weight of the world and drain it through my eyes. I brought the handkerchief up and sighed, sniffling and trying to piece myself together in front of my damn boss.

“What did he do this time?” Ryan asked.

I snickered and shook my head.

“That very question tells me I’m leaning on you way too much about this,” I said.

“Don’t do that,” he said. “Don’t analyze my question. Just talk to me about what’s happening. Maybe I can help.”

“You can’t. No one can. Adam needs to grow up and he can’t. Or he won’t. Or he refuses to. I don’t really know, and part of me doesn’t care anymore. All I do know is that he doesn’t want to move in with me, but he’s not even man enough to say it. He just wants to yank my chain until I howl for mercy… So I’ll call it off and not him.”

“What. Happened?” he asked pointedly.

I looked up into Ryan’s eyes and found his comforting stare looking down on me. I sighed and leaned back in my chair, bringing his handkerchief to my face.

“Is this a new one?” I asked.

“Like I said, I have plenty in my office.”

“Are they all embroidered with your initials?” I asked.

“Of course. How else am I going to know which are mine?”

“Um, because they’ll be the only handkerchiefs within twenty miles of this place? Everyone else uses tissues.”

“Because everyone else likes to torture their noses.”

I giggled and shook my head as a smile crossed my cheeks.

“There we go. That’s a little better,” Ryan said.

The tone of his voice smoothed over my ears, causing me to close my eyes and revel in its warmth. Then I drew in a deep breath.

“Adam called and wanted to do dinner last night—after he ignored my calls all weekend—so we met up. We apologized without really talking, then smoothed things over with…”

I cleared my throat before I drew in another deep breath.

“I got it. Go on,” Ryan said.

“I couldn't sleep much because of this impending move and still not having a moving company booked, so I got up and took a shower. I resigned myself to a sleepless night and started getting some work done—looking through files, calling places and quoting them on moving prices and teams. Adam got up, asked me what I was doing, and the second it flew out of my mouth, it all spiraled again.”

“Did he yell at you again?”

“No. Nothing like that. I just told him I was booking it for myself and he got upset that we weren’t talking about it. Then I asked him if he wanted to talk about it and he said no.”

“What?”

“Right?” I asked. “It was this cyclic disagreement about absolutely nothing, and it routed back to the same thing: He didn’t want to book a mover and I did. And when he stormed out of my apartment after I told him I was moving into the apartment with or without him, it solidified what I’ve been afraid of for a while now.”

I closed my eyes and took in the silence before Ryan spoke.

“I’m going to have a talk with my son.”

“Please don’t do that. It’ll—”

“With all due respect, Kylie, this has nothing to do with the move. He’s mistreating you, manipulating you. I didn’t raise my son the way I did to watch him treat the woman in his life in this manner. Even if he weren't dating you, I’d still be stepping in. I don’t know where in the world this treatment is coming from after the two of you spent so long being happy, but I refuse to allow my son to treat a woman he says he loves the way he’s treating you any longer.”

I nodded my head, no longer having the energy to try to talk him out of it.

“I’m sorry my son is doing this to you. I thought I raised him better than this,” he said.

“This isn’t your fault. You aren’t to blame for his change in attitude over the past three months—or however long it’s been at this point.”

“A parent will always feel responsible, Kylie. When you have children of your own, you’ll understand that.”

“At the rate my life is going, I’ll never understand that.”

“Look at me.”

I shook my head before forcing my gaze up to his.

“Remember what I told you?”

My mind flashed back to our discussion over champagne on his couch.

“I do,” I said.

“I’m a man of my word. Always. I will never lie to you, Kylie. It isn’t in my nature. Which means I didn’t lie to you then. If you don’t have children with my son, you’ll find someone to have them with. A man who will treat you the way you deserve to be treated instead of the way my son is treating you.”

“Thanks. I appreciate it.”

He slid from the side of my desk, and I stood to hand him his handkerchief back. He held his hand out again, prompting me to keep it, but then he did something I didn’t expect. He took a step toward me and folded his arms around me, unprompted. He didn’t hold them out and wait for me to come to him like last time. He simply draped them around me.

And I found myself falling into his embrace.

“You’re a strong woman,” Ryan said. “How you’ve been coping with this on your own is beyond me.”

“I’ve gone through nothing compared to what you’ve been through.”

“Pain isn’t scaled.”

I looked up into his eyes and found him craning his neck to stare at me.

“What do you mean?”

“Pain is relative to the person experiencing it. It’s a chemical reaction that takes place in the brain due to trauma. Someone who has lost their mother experiences the same type of grief as someone who loses their cat. It isn’t the experience that gauges the pain; it’s the extent of the chemical reaction. Yes, I went through a painful divorce—the worst breakup of my life. But you’re going through a painful moment with Adam, the most painful you’ve ever experienced with a man in your life. It’s not the situation that dictates the pain; it’s the reaction the person has when comparing it to the life experiences they’ve already endured.”

I could’ve lost myself in his voice. I could’ve stood there another hour and listened to him talk. Something familiar deep inside me began to roll, and I pressed my cheek back to his chest to revel in his embrace one last time. The peace he afforded me whenever he held me was astounding. And I hadn’t figured out why yet. Maybe because he’d always been a guiding force in my life, someone I knew I could inherently trust or go to if I ever had an issue.

I felt safe in his arms, something I hadn’t felt in a very long time.