Chapter 8 - I Had To Admit I Still Loved Him
People expected anger to simplify me.
It didn’t.
I was furious.
Humiliated.
Relieved I hadn’t married him.
And still deeply in love with him.
All at once.
That was the part I hated admitting.
Julian had been my person for four years.
He knew how I took coffee.
Which side of the bed I slept on.
He called my mother every Sunday before she died.
He sat on the floor outside the bathroom when chemotherapy made her sick.
He helped me restore Hale House after she was gone.
Those things were real.
So was the forged consent.
So was the bouquet.
One truth did not erase another.
My therapist told me:
“You don’t need him to have been fake in order to decide he became unsafe.”
That sentence helped.
Because I kept searching backward for proof I had imagined the entire relationship.
I hadn’t.
Julian loved me.
He also became desperate enough to violate a boundary he knew mattered.
Then hurt enough to retaliate physically when he believed I had humiliated him.
Love was present.
Love was insufficient.
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That distinction eventually saved me from returning too quickly.
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