I sat on my balcony with my hand covering my mouth. I’d called into work sick the last two days and spent my time working from home and staring down the main street of Portland. I couldn't face Ryan. Not after what I had witnessed. I had made my choice and I felt confident in it, but that didn’t mean I hadn’t ruined a family in the process. I hadn’t expected Adam to behave anywhere near as barbaric as he had. Hitting his father? Making Ryan bleed? The blood that trickled down his face would forever be seared into my memory.

My decision had caused Ryan to get hurt, and I wasn’t sure how to live with that.

Adam had never been a fighter. If anything, he had shied away from it during our four-year relationship. Nonconfrontational was the one word I had used to describe him regularly, and I had watched him beat on his father. Thinking about it still made my stomach roll. It made me take a second to catch my breath. I’d never seen him so angry. I’d never seen Adam so furious with his movements.

It made me wonder if he could’ve ever turned that anger on me at some point.

All I had wanted was for Adam to understand my feelings, and I had been concerned that if I’d had that conversation with him in private, he wouldn’t have listened. Watching his anger bleed forth had made me thankful Ryan had been there, because I didn’t know what to expect from Adam any longer. For all I knew, Adam would’ve turned that anger on me, hit me instead of his father.

But maybe that hadn’t been the right choice. Maybe I should’ve just been strong enough to have the conversation twice. Once with Adam to tell him it really was over and then again with Ryan to tell him I wanted him. Or maybe it should have happened over the phone. Maybe I should’ve called Adam the second I got those flowers instead of making him wait. Maybe this was all my fault.

But it didn’t change the fact that it had happened and that I had actively destroyed a father-son relationship.

I loved Ryan. I had hopelessly fallen for him. But how could we go back? How could any of us take any of this back? I felt lost. For the first time since I’d left home, knowing damn well and good I’d never see my parents again, I felt sincerely lost.

The only thing I knew to do was to try this the only other way there was.

And that was to talk with each of them separately.

“Hello?” Adam asked.

“Hey there,” I said.

“Is there something you need?”

His voice was hard, devoid of any emotion. I closed my eyes and sighed.

“I was hoping to get a second chance to try to do this talk the right way,” I said.

“Is there any point? Will this talk get me you?” he asked.

I put my head in my hand and fought the tears that rose behind my eyes.

“It doesn’t, but it does give me a chance to give you the respect I should’ve given you the first time around. The same respect you gave me when you invited me to the diner to talk,” I said.

The silence forced my heart to stop in my chest, and I just knew he would say no. He would hang up the phone and all would be lost. The second I heard him draw in a breath, I let out the one I hadn’t known I was holding.

“Diner? For lunch?” Adam asked.

“Sounds great. I’ll see you then.”

Two hours later, I sat down in that same booth where Adam had professed his continued love for me not two weeks ago. I sat there waiting for him to show up, convinced that he probably wouldn’t. Then the diner door opened and he walked through, making a beeline for me with his stoic gaze.

He slid into his side of the booth and leaned back, looking more tired than he ever had in his entire life.

Well, the part of his life I’d known him.

“I want to start off by telling you that I’m sorry. I didn’t handle this the way it needed to be handled, no matter my intention behind it.”

Adam nodded, but he didn’t say anything.

“Despite what you might think, nothing was going on between your father and I while we were together. He didn’t hire me to swoop in for the kill, or however you put it. He was a comforting ear while our relationship was falling apart, and all we did was talk.”

“And fall in love,” he said.

“That didn’t come until after. The kiss you walked in on? That was the first sort of intimate contact outside a hug when I broke down in my office one time while he was in there.”

“You cried in your office?”

“I did.”

“Just like that.”

“Our fights were weighing on me heavily,” I said.

“I’ve seen you cry maybe twice in the four years I’ve known you, and you just broke down in your office like it was nothing?”

“I did,” I said.

I watched him nod as he drew in a deep breath.

“I didn’t mean to fall in love with your dad. It simply happened. I can’t really pinpoint a specific time or a day. I just woke up one morning and wanted him there when he wasn’t. I can’t help it. And no amount of fighting or anger or flowers or diner meet-ups is going to change that. But I do want to address something that happened Monday night.”

His eyes connected with mine, and I swallowed thickly.

“I’ve never known you to be physical,” I said. “Confrontation isn’t in your nature. And watching you hit your father like that… Adam, I’m pretty sure you broke his nose.”

He winced at my words. “I’m sorry for hitting him like that in front of you.”

“You should be sorry for hitting him in general,” I said.

“Don’t make this a fight, Kylie.”

“I’m not,” I said. “But what you said implies that you still would have hit him had I not been there. And that worries me. I don’t want your relationship with your father to suffer because of this. You don’t have a relationship with your mother. He’s all you have. I can’t take that from you. I won’t. I refuse to.”

“I’m sorry for getting as upset as I did, and I am sorry for hitting my father. It wasn’t something I should’ve done. And despite everything that’s happened, I do love you, Kylie. I want you to be happy. I just got a little jealous that it was my father, of all people, who was making you happy in ways I couldn’t.”

“I want you to be happy as well, which is why this is so difficult. I can’t be with your father, no matter how much I care for him, if I know it’s going to affect your relationship with him. The bond between a child and a parent? It’s sacred. I’ve lived without that sacred bond for years, and I wouldn’t wish it on anyone, Adam. That’s why I’m not taking it from you. If me being with Ryan destroys that between you two, then I’m not doing it.”

“You're not doing what, Kylie?”

“Going to be with your father.”

Two mugs of coffee were set in front of us, exactly as we always ordered them. It was a stark reminder of the years we’d spent together. Of the years ingrained into the world around us that recognized us as a couple, as a unit. Us as an entity. I pushed it all to the side and reached for the creamer, opening up small containers and dumping them in. I swirled it around with a coffee stirrer, making peace with the decision sitting in front of me.

Then Adam spoke up.

“Out of everyone on this planet, Kylie, you deserve to be happy. And if being with my father makes you happy, then you should be with him.”

I stopped stirring as my eyes panned up to his.

“What?” I asked.

“It hurts. I won’t sugarcoat it. The relationship between my father and I will take some time to repair. But if the two of you are happy together, then I’m not going to stand in your way any longer. I’ll back off. Hell, I’ll even support you. Though I don’t know if I’ll be able to listen to you complain about my dad when the two of you fight. That might be a job for Alyssa.”

I breathlessly giggled as tears rose to my eyes. “You’re being serious,” I said.

“I am. And the mere fact that my father’s able to draw this kind of emotion from you shows me that he’s the best for you. I love you, Kylie, but I’m not an idiot. We never had that kind of relationship. Our bond didn’t run that deeply. You were always supporting me, and I was always casting your emotions aside. It’s obvious my father gives you a lot of what I didn’t. What I apparently couldn't.”

“I loved the time we spent together, Adam.”

“I’ll always cherish it, too, Kylie. But if it makes you feel any better, my relationship with my dad hasn’t been working for about a year now—ever since I started the production company. That’s a story for another day, but it’s forced us to grow apart a bit. Not all of this is you and him. Some of this is also me and him, stuff between us that dates back before your graduation and before the job offer and before any of this ever happened.”

“Why didn’t you ever tell me?” I asked.

“I don’t know,” he said as he shook his head. “And maybe that’s another reason why we didn’t work. But I want you to know I’ll always be there for you as a friend. If you ever need anything—if you ever need someone on your side—I’ve got you.”

A tear streamed down my cheek before I raised my hand to catch it.

“Thank you, Adam. I really appreciate that.”

“Just make me a promise.”

“Anything,” I said.

“Don’t twist my father’s words whenever the two of you fight. Because you will, and you both have that fun little trait in common. But I promise you, Kylie, he’ll always be better at it.”

I threw my head back and laughed as a smile spread across my cheeks.

“I’ll keep that in mind,” I said.

“Want to order some food?”

I looked over at the waitress who was eyeing us carefully, trying to figure out what was going on.

“An official parting lunch?” I asked.

“On me,” Adam said.

“We can split the check. I think that’ll be a signal enough to silence the chatter in the corner.”

I nodded my head, and Adam turned to look before he beckoned for our waitress.

“A split check it is,” he said.