A mistake, she admitted, one she regretted every day since. She hadn’t told me because she was afraid it would destroy what was left of me. Instead, she had spent years trying to earn back what she feared she had lost. I was torn—staring at someone who had held me up at my lowest, and yet had also helped me fall. Days passed in a blur of anger, grief, and memory.

Then, I asked her to meet me at the old park bench where we first met during freshman year. She sat down beside me, eyes filled with the same fear and hope. “I can’t forget,” I told her. “But I don’t want to lose you either.” Some wounds don’t heal neatly. But sometimes, grace can be stronger than the pain. And forgiveness doesn’t always come clean—it comes slowly, in quiet choices, in second chances. Especially when it begins exactly where trust was broken.