I stared at the message I'd typed for ten full minutes before deleting it.
Then I typed something else. Deleted that too.
This went on for over an hour. Type. Delete. Type. Delete.
Each version revealed a different side of me. The girl who wanted to believe in second chances. The woman who knew better. The romantic. The realist. The hopeful. The traumatized.
All of them living inside me, fighting for control.
Finally, I put the phone down without sending anything.
I don't have to decide right now, I told myself. He said to think about it. So I'll think about it.
But thinking about it was all I could do.
My roommate came back around 9 PM, bursting through the door with bags of snacks and a determined expression.
"Okay, you've had enough time to process. Now talk."
I looked up from my bed where I'd been lying, staring at the ceiling. "Talk about what?"
"Don't play dumb. The meeting. Him. Everything. You sounded weird on the phone and then you hung up on me, which you never do."
She settled onto her bed, facing me. Waiting.
"He apologized," I said finally.
"Okay. And?"
"And he asked for another chance."
Her expression shifted immediately. "He what?"
"He said he's changed. That he wants to do things right this time. A real relationship."
"And what did you say?"
"I didn't. He told me to think about it."
She was quiet for a long moment. Then: "What are you thinking?"
"I don't know. That's the problem. I genuinely don't know."
"Do you want my opinion?"
"I don't know if I'm ready to hear it."
"I'm giving it anyway." She leaned forward. "This is the same guy who assaulted you. Who made you bleed for days. Who love bombed you and then pulled away. Who didn't check on you once in ten months. And now, because you confronted him, he suddenly wants a relationship?"
"I know all that—"
"Do you? Because you're sitting here actually considering it."
"You didn't see him today," I said quietly. "You didn't hear how he sounded. How sincere he was."
"Of course he sounded sincere. That's what manipulators do. They're convincing."
"What if he's not manipulating? What if he really has changed?"
"Then he can prove it with someone else. Someone he didn't traumatize."
Her words hit hard because they were true.
But they also made me defensive.
"You don't understand," I said. "You don't know what it's like to want someone this badly even when you know you shouldn't. To have your body respond to them in ways you can't control."
"You're right. I don't understand." Her voice softened. "But I understand trauma bonding. I understand that sometimes our bodies respond to people who hurt us because that's how we're wired to survive. It doesn't mean we should go back to them."
I didn't respond. Just pulled my knees to my chest and rested my chin on them.
"Can I ask you something?" she said after a moment.
"Yeah."
"When you think about being with him again—really being with him—do you feel excited? Or do you feel anxious?"
I thought about it honestly.
When I imagined saying yes, imagined us trying again, what did I feel?
There was excitement, yes. The possibility of getting what I'd wanted. The validation of him choosing me.
But underneath that...
Fear. Anxiety. The nagging sense that history would repeat itself.
"Both," I admitted. "I feel both."
"That's your answer then. If the idea of being with him scares you—even a little—then he's not the right person."
"But what if I'm just scared because of what happened? What if I'm letting trauma dictate my choices?"
"There's a difference between trauma making you afraid of all men and trauma making you afraid of the specific man who hurt you. One is something to work through. The other is wisdom."
I wanted to argue. Wanted to defend him, defend my desire to give this another chance.
But I couldn't find the words.
After she went to sleep, I lay awake, still undecided.
My mind kept returning to the bathroom. To the way my body had responded to thoughts of him. To the pleasure I'd felt for the first time in months.
Didn't that mean something? Didn't that prove we had a connection worth exploring?
Or did it just mean my body had been so starved for pleasure that it would've responded to any fantasy?
I thought about his eyes. His smile. The way he'd reached across the table like he wanted to touch me but held back.
I thought about his apology. How he'd admitted he was scared of commitment. How he'd said I made him feel things.
I thought about the videos we'd made. The late-night conversations. The way he'd made me feel special.
But then I thought about the other things.
The blood. The pain. The tearing.
"It slipped."
The second time, when I was still healing.
The third time, when I tried so hard to enjoy it and couldn't.
"Sweet pain."
His disappearance when I asked for clarity.
Ten months of silence.
I grabbed my phone and opened our chat again.
Still no message from me. Just his: Think about it. That's all I'm asking.
I started typing.
I've been thinking about it. About us. About everything that happened and everything that could happen. And I need you to know something before I give you my answer.
I paused. Read it back. Continued.
What you did to me changed my life. It broke something in me that I'm still trying to fix. And seeing you today brought back feelings I thought I'd buried. Good feelings and bad feelings all mixed together until I can't tell them apart.
Another pause. My heart was racing.
You asked for another chance. And part of me wants to give it to you. Part of me wants to believe that people can change, that we could build something real, that all the pain could mean something if we ended up together.
I stopped. Stared at the words.
Was this a yes? Was I really about to say yes?
My finger hovered over the send button.
All I had to do was press it. Send the message. See what he said. Take the leap.
What was stopping me?
A memory surfaced. Unbidden but vivid.
Me, in his bathroom, bleeding. Looking at myself in the mirror. Hollow eyes staring back.
The girl in that mirror had been broken. Lost. Desperate for someone to tell her she wasn't crazy, that what happened mattered, that her pain was real.
And the person who should've told her that—the person who caused that pain—had just left her there to figure it out alone.
I deleted what I'd written.
Typed something new:
I need more time.
Short. Simple. Non-committal.
I sent it before I could overthink.
The three dots appeared almost immediately.
My breath caught.
Then his response: Take all the time you need. I'm not going anywhere.
I'm not going anywhere.
The words should've been comforting. Should've felt like a promise.
Instead, they felt like pressure.
I put my phone away and tried to sleep.
But sleep didn't come easily.
My mind raced through scenarios. Imagined futures. Possible outcomes.
In some, I said yes and we fell in love and everything worked out.
In others, I said yes and he hurt me again and I ended up even more broken than before.
In still others, I said no and spent the rest of my life wondering what could've been.
None of them felt right. None of them felt safe.
Around 3 AM, I gave up on sleep and grabbed my journal.
Started writing. Not for anyone else. Just for me.
I don't know what to do. My body wants him. My heart is confused. My mind says run. Which one do I listen to?
He looked so beautiful today. Just like I remembered. Maybe even more beautiful because I'd been without him for so long.
But beautiful people can do ugly things. And what he did to me was ugly.
So why do I still want him?
Why does my body still respond to the memory of him?
Why can't I just let go?
I wrote until my hand cramped. Pages and pages of confusion and longing and fear.
And at the end, I wrote one question:
What would the girl I want to become choose?
Not the girl I was crying. Not the girl who got hurt.
But the girl I wanted to become. The healed version. The strong version. The version who knew her worth.
What would she choose?
The answer came quietly. Certainly.
But I wasn't ready to accept it yet.
The next morning, my roommate asked if I'd decided.
"Not yet."
"But you're leaning one way?"
I thought about the question I'd written in my journal. About the girl I wanted to become.
"Maybe," I said. "I think so. But I'm scared."
"Scared of saying yes? Or scared of saying no?"
I didn't answer.
Because I was scared of both.
Scared that saying yes would destroy me.
Scared that saying no would haunt me.
That afternoon, he texted again: Can we talk? Just for a few minutes?
My heart jumped.
About what?
About us. About what I said yesterday. I just want to hear your voice.
I stared at the message.
Hearing his voice would make this harder. Would make the pull stronger.
But I wanted to hear it. Wanted to know if it still affected me the way it used to.
Okay. Call me in 10.
Exactly ten minutes later, my phone rang.
I let it ring twice before answering.
"Hi."
"Hi." His voice was warm. Familiar. Like coming home after a long trip.
"You wanted to talk?"
"Yeah. I just... I couldn't stop thinking about yesterday. About seeing you. About how it felt to be in the same room again."
"How did it feel?"
"Like I could finally breathe. Like something I didn't know I was missing clicked back into place."
My chest tightened.
He continued: "I know I hurt you. I know I don't deserve another chance. But I can't stop thinking about what we could be if you'd let me prove I've changed."
"How do I know you've changed? How do I know this isn't just you saying what I want to hear?"
"You don't. Not yet. But give me the chance to show you. That's all I'm asking."
The sincerity in his voice was undeniable.
Either he meant every word or he was the best actor I'd ever encountered.
"I don't know if I can do this," I whispered.
"Yes you can. You're stronger than you think. Stronger than I gave you credit for back then."
"What if you hurt me again?"
"I won't. I swear I won't."
But people who hurt you always swear they won't do it again.
Until they do.
"I need to go," I said suddenly.
"Wait—"
"I'll text you. When I've decided. But I need to go."
I hung up before he could respond.
My roommate looked at me from across the room.
"That was him, wasn't it?"
I nodded.
"What did he say?"
"That he's changed. That he won't hurt me again. That he wants to prove it to me."
"And do you believe him?"
That was the question, wasn't it?
Did I believe him?
Could I believe him?
Should I believe him?
"I don't know," I said honestly. "I want to. God, I want to so badly. But I don't know if I can trust my own judgment anymore. Everything he did to me before, I didn't see coming. So how do I know I'll see it this time if he's lying?"
"You don't," she said gently. "That's the risk. The question is whether he's worth that risk."
Is he worth the risk?
I thought about that question for the rest of the day.
Weighed the good against the bad. The memories against the trauma. The possibility against the probability.
That evening, I made my decision.
I picked up my phone, opened our chat, and started typing my answer.
My final answer.
The one that would determine everything that came next.
But what do you think I said?