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He let go of my hand. I wanted to grasp it back. Hang on to it like it was the very last piece of my sanity.

He found a tissue, and then I was blowing my nose and wiping my face, and I had actually lost the very last piece of my dignity, crying like a baby and holding hands.

“Those were just mistakes. You need to stop living in the past. Just like I need to stop mourning something I will never recover. We both need to grow up and move on. And start over.”

“I know,” I whimpered. “But it got worse. It got much, much worse.”

“Then man up, Dylan.” The words were perhaps harsh, but I needed to hear them. His hand was back in mine. “We’ll do it together. You’ll do this, and I’ll start to figure out where I go from here.”

“And where is that?” I snorted out, one-handedly blowing my nose.

“Where I’m going from here?” He was smiling.

Stewart Schiller was a handsome man. A warm, caring individual. He also made me feel good about myself, especially when I was in a state like this, crying and blubbering and losing my marbles. Correction: Ihadlost them. All of them. Marbles, dignity, sanity, the works.Whatever I’d held on to, Gun Larsen had stripped me of this morning, dressing me down like a schoolchild, throwing it all in my face as I’d slowly crumbled, a broken man all over again.

“I don’t know,” Stewart said, jerking me out of my pity party. “But I’m about to try something new, and I hope you’ll perhaps join me on that journey.”

“Sounds like you’re joining a cult,” I quipped before I could stop myself. Broken or not, I still couldn’t behave around him.

“A cult.” He laughed.

“I hope not. I can only deal with so much today.” Honesty. Total honesty.

“No, I’m going to figure out who I am and what makes me happy,” he stated calmly. “I’m starting to realise that perhaps I have lived my entire life for other people, and I still haven’t allowed myself to do what I want. Isn’t that strange? That I’m just now realising that?”

“Not strange at all,” I breathed out.

And relaxed.

What was this magic he kept gifting me? Peace. Understanding. Saying things that I could have said myself.What I wanted? I knew exactly what I wanted. I wanted to live in my house with my children and laugh and be loved and deal with the ups and downs of everyday life. I wanted to be normal. To be a father. To love.

And I wanted to hold on to the hand in mine.

I had no idea what that meant.

“We’re here,” he said, turning off the ignition.

I’d drifted off, not even realising we’d come through the gates and that he’d managed to park his large car in the insanely small space outside his house, turning the steering wheel back to straight with one finger. Such precision.

“You coming in?” I asked feebly. I wanted him to. I didn’t want to sit and stew in all of this. Not again.

“Do you want me to? Have you not got a meeting?”

“I need help moving the table so I can spread out some architectural drawings.” I didn’t believe myself, the way I whined it out in a squeaky voice.

“Sounds like an excuse for me to make you a nice cup of tea. Decaf. Perhaps a sandwich?”

“I don’t expect you to.”

Weak.

Needy.

Terrified.

“Don’t worry. We’ll do whatever needs doing,” he said calmly.

Happiness. A small shimmer of it, like a ray of sunshine that just broke through the clouds above.