Untitled story

I can’t say it was always toxic. It wasn’t. After I left F-town, I stayed home about six months.

Then my toxic love called me from an out of state number.

He had a three bedroom house.

A car.

Everything lined up under the name of what we called love.

And somehow, I ended up leaving with him again.

For a while, it worked.

We were sober.

Quiet.

Normal, even.

Almost a year of it, like we’d finally figured it out.

Then he got offered a job as a traveling project manager for a construction crew.

At first, I was happy for him.

That changed fast when I heard where the assignment was—

too close to his hometown.

I felt it immediately.

That familiar drop in my stomach, like my body knew something my mind was still trying to argue with.

I told him I didn’t like it.

I told him I didn’t trust it.

He promised me it would be fine.

His mind was made up.

So I gave him the benefit of the doubt.

Three weeks of no real contact passed like that—

slow at first, then all at once. By the end of it, I wasn’t even surprised anymore.

Just tired.

I called my mom.

A few days later, I was packing my things again, making the two hour drive back home. Alone this time.

I felt stupid.

That was the loudest thought in my head.

Not sadness—

Stupid.

I stayed at my mom’s for a few days, just existing in that in between space where you don’t know if you’re healing or paused.

Then she introduced me to a couple people, my age, worked under at a warehouse. Said it might help to get out of the house.

I didn’t want to go.

I went anyway.

At first, it was awkward—

Me sitting in rooms I didn’t belong in, pretending I wasn’t unraveling.

My mom introducing me like I needed rescuing, because I kind of did.

After the first meeting, I was invited over to an apartment.

I didn’t really know what I was walking into.

Drake lived there with his sister and her husband.

Jonah lived next door.

Taz drifted in and out like he didn’t belong anywhere permanently.

My childhood best friend Red showed up later, like a piece of my old life trying to stitch itself back in.

They were loud.

Chaotic.

Real in a way I wasn’t used to anymore.

At first, I just watched them.

Then I started talking.

Then I stopped feeling like an outsider.

It didn’t take long before I noticed the familiar edges again—

The same conversations I used to know too well, the same coded language hiding in plain sight.

One night, I found myself sitting too close to Andy on the couch, like proximity alone could keep me steady.

“Can I get a bump?” I asked.

I said it casually.

Like I wasn’t falling back into something I already knew the ending of.

Andy looked at me for a second longer than necessary.

“Yeah,” he said. “You need help?”

I shook my head.

“I got you.”

We tied my arm off.

I watched him like it was a job.

Gently he began feeling my arm....

And in that moment, it didn’t feel like a decision so much as a return to something my body remembered before my mind could argue