A Risk on Forever

by N.S. Perkins

Now, sometimes, it’s possible those choices were mistakes. Everyone makes them, and that’s okay. It’s part of life. But even if they’re mistakes that doesn’t mean you shouldn’t own up to them. I know I have said in a previous letter not to spend too much time ruminating over all the small faults you will commit in the future, but that doesn’t mean you should never reflect on the bigger mistakes you make.

Examine your choices, and if you have regrets, then be mature enough to apologize, to right your wrongs, to make things better. Making mistakes is not the problem. B...

Looking around me, I realized I was back in the exact same situation I was in six months ago. Nothing had changed in that time, yet everything had. I might’ve been sitting in the same park, scavenging for the same jobs, but I wasn’t the same person. I had changed. I had loved and lost in more ways than I could count. But I had also found a strength within me I didn’t know I had. I’d gone through so much and still made it out alive.

Him. Espresso eyes that softened every bit of tense muscle in my body. Hair that had once felt so soft against my skin. Lips that melted away every inch of ice that had covered my heart ever since he’d left me alone in his living room. It all shattered.

And suddenly, I remembered what it was like to love him. He had stolen the feeling when he had left in the night, but here he was, returning it to me.

I’d told myself I’d moved on—I’d had to after his clear dismissal—but my heart hadn’t gotten the message, from the way it thudded erratically aga...

He was looking around him, similarly to how I’d done a few minutes before. And when our eyes connected, electricity coursed through my veins. No matter how hard I’d tried to get over him, it was clear I’d failed.

“I couldn’t stay because of you! I left for you, Addy.” “What in the world are you talking about?” He might’ve been even more messed up than I’d thought. The hard mask he’d been wearing crumbled, revealing all kinds of emotions. “You told me you’d take care of me, but I couldn’t do that to you. Not when you’ve had to take care of people your whole life. I wasn’t going to be another burden to you.”

“But… But you wouldn’t have been a burden to me, Matt.” My voice was wobbly, filled with pain and fear and, despite everything, love.

“You don’t understand, Adelaide. I couldn’t stand having you struggle even more. Not when I had a say in it.” He exhaled shakily. “I’m a fucking mess, and I don’t know how things will work out for me in the future, and I couldn’t have us falling in love with each ot...

It wasn’t disinterest that had controlled his decision, but selflessness. He hadn’t left me because he didn’t want me; he’d left me because he thought I needed protection. From him. The thing was, he didn’t know it was too late to stop me from falling in love with him.

“I can’t handle possibly being the cause of more pain for you. I can deal with more pain for myself, but not for you. Never for you.”

“You can’t shield me from pain, Matt. That’s impossible. The only thing you can do is let me soak up as much joy as I can to make the pain worth it if it one day comes.”My

“I would’ve let you break my heart a thousand times over, just for the chance of getting more of the moments of pure happiness I felt when I was with you. If you’d just given me something, I would’ve given you everything.”

I watched her go. Her frizzy hair blew around her face with the wind, but she didn’t try to push it away. She let it go free, like she always did. She walked rapidly, as if she couldn’t get away from me fast enough. I understood. And with her left my heart.

I believed everything she’d said before leaving, and that was part of the problem. I knew she would give me everything, but I didn’t want her to. She couldn’t keep offering herself away. I wouldn’t ask her to give another piece of herself only to make sure I was okay.

Because that wasn’t what love was. And if there was one thing I was sure of, it was that I was in love with her. So fucking in love, it h...

Whether she wanted to believe it or not, I was doing this for her. If it meant she’d be happier, then it didn’t matter that letting her go killed some part of me. Addy’s the only thing that matters, I repeated over and over as I ...

It had been more than a month now. I should have been able to stop thinking about her a long time ago, so why the fuck hadn’t I? Why was she invading each and every one of my thoughts, making it impossible to forget her? Why was I still imagining her sitting beside the fire pit when I looked outside, or picturing her spying on me while I played the piano when I crossed my study’s threshold?

Addy would do anything for the people around her, even if she was the one to pay for it in the end. I couldn’t be responsible for that.

“And even if you did do it to protect her heart, do you really think you’ve protected her from pain by letting her go?”

“I’ve seen the way she looked at you. It was the same way you looked at her.” She took another sip of her drink. “If that wasn’t love, then I don’t know what is.”

“even if being with you is a risk to her heart, shouldn’t she be the one to decide whether or not she wants to take that risk?”

The only thing you can do is let me soak up as much joy as I can to make the pain worth it if it one day comes. That’s where I’d gone wrong. I hadn’t given her the opportunity to make the pain worth it if it did come. I’d given up on the one person who might’ve loved me as much as I loved them and who wanted to be in my life, simply because I was scared that she’d someday get hurt because of me.

If I hadn’t been so scared, I could’ve been with her right now, instead of drunk and sad in a hotel room. Or at least, I could’ve given her the chance to decide whether she wanted to be with me or not. With another gulp of whiskey, I decided I wouldn’t be scared anymore.

Ever since the moment I’d decided to make things right with Addy, I hadn’t been able to think about anything else. Not that she hadn’t always been on my mind before, but now it was different.

I needed to find a way to make her forgive me and want to be with me again. And this time, I wouldn’t change my mind. I wouldn’t give up, not for anything in the world, unless she told me she wanted me to.

Because giving up would mean letting go of the one person who ...

Each day without her had been increasingly painful, like an infection to which I had no antidote. And as that infection grew, I saw again how right Rosalie had been; it was a certain game we played, life. A balancing act of pain and love. The things we loved most led to the most pain. Remove those things in an attempt of preservation, and the infection would spread twice...

There might not have been a way to protect Addy or me from future pain, but there was a way to work for our happiness. That was what I’d focus on from now on. It w...

She’d wanted me to be with Addy from the beginning; had seen something even I had been too blind to see. Addy was the one for me.

But I did have that chance. In my mind, it would have been dishonoring Helen to let the woman I loved go when I still had at least the chance to get her back. So, I’d do everything I could to win her heart again, both for my mom and for me.

For the life of me, I couldn’t understand Matthias Philips. I’d tried so many times, but I could never figure out what was truly going on in that head of his.

That was my problem: I did want to answer his call. More than anything in the world, I wished to hear his voice and speak with him like we used to. I still loved him, plain and simple. Despite everything I’d tried in the last days, my feelings hadn’t been able to go back to their tiny box.

But how could I give up on her? After knowing—feeling—what it could be like to be with her, I couldn’t bear to move on. How could I go back to being with other women when I remembered what it was like to have her, to hold her in my arms and feel strands of soft, curly hair against my skin? God, I’d been such a stupid asshole.

“Give me one good reason to help you.” That was simple enough to answer. “Because I’m convinced I can make her happy. I might have screwed up a lot in the past, but I understand where I went wrong now.” I swallowed. “I can’t make the same mistakes because I don’t think the same way anymore. I love her, and if she still wants to be with me, then that’s what I want too.”

“You need to prove to her that you’re in this for the long haul. She needs to be convinced that you won’t leave her again, and you won’t be able to do that without real proof of your intentions.”

“Look, I gotta go now. I can’t tell you what you need to do, but if anyone can break down her walls, I believe it’s you.”

Addy felt abandoned, plain and simple. She wasn’t sure if I truly loved her and wanted to give her my future, which was ridiculous; spending my whole life loving Addy wouldn’t be long enough. But, it seemed like she didn’t realize that.

“Don’t let him push you away if you think you should be together. Let him know that you can damn well make that decision for yourself. I never regretted that your mother did, and I know he could never regret you being in his life.”

Whether I liked it or not, it was Matthias my heart had chosen. I’d tried and tried to move on from him, but it was an impossible feat. I couldn’t let go of him.

I wasn’t ready. I hadn’t prepared what I wanted to say to him. And yet, by simply being close to him, it was like a weight had been taken off my shoulders. It was only in seeing him that I realized I didn’t need more time to consider if I wanted to take a risk on Matthias. My heart was telling me all I needed to know. I loved him and I wanted him. It was worth the possible rejection. He was worth it.

How could I survive never seeing him again? If only he’d known how much my mind had changed in the last few days.

“Falling in love with you wasn’t gradual. It hit me like a tidal wave.”

“I woke up one morning and it hit me that if you ever walked out of my life, it would feel like losing a limb. You were an intricate part of my life, of my heart, and I was undeniably and whole-heartedly in love with you.”

“And these past months without you…” He shook his head. “They’ve felt exactly like that, like I was missing a part of myself.”

“And you were right, it was a cowardly thing to do, to leave from fear of hurting you, of hurting me, and I’m so sorry for taking that choice away from you. It wasn’t my place to do so.” His voice was soft like velvet. “You can decide for yourself what you can and can’t handle, and it might make me a bastard, but I’m really fucking hoping that you still decide I’m worth the risk.”

Behind us, the song I’d sang for him at the wedding was still playing, the soft melody cocooning us in our own world. In my happy place.

“You told me once that you would’ve given me your heart to break a thousand times over to feel the happiness we felt together. Well, I’m only asking you to do it once more. And I swear if you do, you’ll never have to fear it getting broken again. I’ll give you everything, just like you said you would.”

“Please don’t freak out. This is a promise ring, not an engagement ring.” A storm of emotions must have been written on my face because he said, “It simply means I’ll do all the groveling I need to do to make sure you know how much I love you. But in the end, I do want to marry you, Addy. I’ll give you all the time in the world, but I’m not backing out of this. Not if you’ll have me.”