Chapter 5 Threading the broken

I didn't return to the facility because I was broken.

I went back because it was the only place that reminded me I wasn't.

I had taken more time off than I planned, and if I was being honest, I didn't want to lose the only space that was actually helping me breathe again. Therapy hadn't failed me-if anything, it was working. It was helping me find tiny pieces of myself in the quiet moments between group sessions and the stillness of the early mornings.

The break I took... it was never meant to be this long. I only left because I thought I had made enough progress to go home, to try again. To fix something. But life met me with another crack. Or maybe that's not fair-it wasn't life. It was Solace. And Vicky.

Coming back felt like stitching myself up again, not because I was bleeding, but because I wanted to heal properly this time. Completely.

I was tired the evening I arrived. Not just from the journey, but from the weight I'd been carrying in my chest. There was something comforting about walking into the warm lights of the reception. The smell of lavender and the soft hum of wind chimes by the open windows. My room was just the way I left it-bed neatly made, a little ceramic vase still holding dried wildflowers I picked during our week two grounding exercise.

The next morning, I sat across from Lora-my therapist-for a one-on-one.

She looked at me like she always did. Patient. Calm. Her pen rested beside her notepad like she didn't need it. Like what I had to say mattered more than the notes.

"I want to move forward, Lora," I said quietly, my fingers curled around the warm mug of mint tea.

Her head tilted slightly. "Forward?"

"Yeah. Not just surviving the past anymore. I want to stop dragging the wreckage around. I want to pack it up, maybe label it 'happened,' and leave it behind. I know it's always going to be there. Jason... Solace... everything. But I want to stop bleeding from it."

She smiled softly. "That sounds like growth, Ella."

I shrugged, but I could feel the shift in me. It wasn't just words. "I'm not healed yet. But I'm not lost anymore."

"I'm proud of you."

She always said that-but today, it hit different. Maybe because I finally believed her.

The last week at the facility was something different. There was this joint program the staff had been planning-a kind of outdoor retreat where members from our branch and another branch of the same facility from another town would meet. It was held at a rented park just outside the city, a quiet place with trees that stood like they'd been listening to people's pain for years.

They paired us up. Not with friends, not with people we already knew, but with someone completely new. A fresh voice. A fresh story. Someone to listen to, and someone to hear us.

I was just tired that morning. I didn't even feel like talking. So when I saw my partner, I almost choked on my breath.

"Charles?" The guy from the bar.

He turned, and his face broke into a crooked smile.

"Wow," he said, like the universe had just pulled off a prank. "It really is you."

I blinked. "You... what are you doing here?"

He scratched the back of his neck, his smile a little sheepish now. "Well, it turns out I'm not just some random guy in a bar."

I was still stunned. I hadn't called him. Not once. After he handed me that card, after that night... I just didn't. Not because I didn't want to, but because I didn't know what I'd say. What could I possibly offer someone when I felt so hollow myself?

He must've read my silence.

"I've been here for a while," he said. "The weekend we met? It was a month after I joined the facility and that was my time off. Like a break from everything. I lost my wife a few months back and life became dark. The therapy facility has helped so much but I just needed a break... I wanted one night to feel normal. To laugh with someone. You gave me that."

I lowered my eyes. "Why didn't you say anything that night?"

He shrugged gently. "You were already sharing your grief. I didn't want to dump mine on you too. I guess... I didn't want to make it about me. But I needed a friend. And you-your eyes that night-they felt familiar. Safe."

I sat down slowly, the reality of it sinking in. "So... all this time..."

"I kept hoping you'd call," he said, smiling softly, not blaming, just... stating. "But meeting you again like this? Maybe it's just life's way of saying, 'Hey, finish that conversation.'"

I laughed a little. It wasn't forced. It was warm. "Yeah, maybe."

We didn't force it. We didn't dump our pain in a pile and compare scars. We just talked. And when we didn't talk, we walked quietly around the trees, pausing now and then to let the silence speak for us.

After we were out of the facility, we kept talking. Not in a rushed, needy way. Just... slowly. Gently. We'd go on small friendship dates, as we called them-coffee at a corner shop, sitting on the porch of the facility with our mugs, or walking to the stream at the back of the garden.

It wasn't romantic. There was no pressure. Just two people trying to breathe again. Two people who had seen enough darkness to respect the light when it came.

Sometimes we talked about Jason. Sometimes he talked about his late wife-her name was Renee. She died in a car accident. He loved her deeply, and I could hear it in the way he paused when he said her name.

There was something sacred about it-this grief-born friendship. We didn't rush to heal each other. We simply showed up.

And for the first time in a long time, I started to believe that maybe-just maybe-this friendship was the thing that would hold us both steady until the storm passed.

Not love. Not romance.

Just two broken people trying to be whole again.

Together.