He cringes at the words, his body strung so tight I fear his next words will snap the tension, relieve the boy but break the man within. I look at him, my own heart shattering, my own faith dissolved imagining the horror his small body endured, and I force myself to stem the physical revulsion his words evoke because I fear he’ll think it’s for him, not the monsters who abused him.

I can hear him struggling to catch his breath, can see him physically revolt against his own words with a forceful swallow. When he starts speaking again, his voice is more controlled but the eerily quiet tone chills my skin.

“Love was snapping her little boy’s arm in half because he bit the man raping him so hard that now he won’t give up her next fucking speedball. Love was telling her son he wants it, deserves it, that no one will ever love him if they know. Oh and to seal the deal, it was telling her son that the superheroes he calls to while being violated—ruined—yeah those, they’re never fucking coming to save him. Never!” He’s shouting into the night, tears coursing down both of our faces, and his shoulders are shuddering with the relief of being unburdened from the weight he’s carried for over twenty-five years.

“So if that’s love?” He laughs darkly again, “…then yeah, my first eight fucking years of my life, I was loved like you wouldn’t fucking believe.” He walks up to me, and even through the darkness I can feel the anger, the despair, the grief that’s running rampant through his body. He looks down for a beat, and I watch the tears falling from his face darken the white concrete below. He shakes his head once more, and when he looks up, the resignation in his eyes, the shame that edges it, devastates me. “So when I ask why I’m confused about how I can feel anything other than hatred to know she’s dead? That’s why, Rylee,” he says so quietly I strain to hear him.

I don’t know what to say. Don’t know what to do, because every single part of me has just shattered and crashed down around me. I’ve heard it all in my job, but to hear it from a grown man broken, lost, forlorn, burdened with the weight of shame over an entire lifetime, a man I would give my heart and soul to if I knew it would take away the pain and memories, leaves me at a complete loss.

And in the split second it takes me to think all of this, it hits Colton what he’s just said. The adrenaline from his confession abates. His shoulders begin to shake and his legs give out as he crumbles to the bench behind him. In the heartbeat of time it takes me to get to him, he is sobbing into his hands. Heart wrenching, soul cleansing sobs that rack through his entire body as, “Oh my God!” falls from his lips over and over again.

I wrap my arms around him feeling completely helpless but not wanting to let go, never wanting to let go. “It’s okay, Colton. It’s okay,” I repeat over and over in between his repeated words, my tears falling onto his shoulders as I hold tight letting him know that no matter how far he falls, I’ll catch him.

I’ll always catch him.

I try to hold back the sobs racking through my body but it’s no use. There’s nothing left for me to do but feel with him, grieve with him, mourn with him. And so we sit like this in the dark, me holding onto him, and him letting go in a place that’s always brought him peace.

I just pray that this time the peace will find some permanence in his scarred soul.

Our tears subside but he just keeps his head in his hands, eyes squeezed tight, and so many emotions stripping him straight to the core. I want him to take the lead here, need him to let me know how to help him so I just sit quietly.

“I’ve never … I’ve never said those words out loud before,” he says, voice hoarse from crying and eyes focused on his fidgeting fingers. “I’ve never told anyone,” he whispers. “I guess I thought that if I said it, then … I don’t know what I thought would happen.”

“Colton,” I say his name as I try to figure out what to say next. I need to see his eyes, need for him to see mine. “Colton, look at me please,” I say as gently as possible, and he just shakes his head back and forth like a little kid afraid of getting in trouble.

I allow him time, allow him to hide in the silence and darkness of the night, my thoughts consumed with pain for this man I love so very dearly. I close my eyes, trying to process it all, when I hear him whisper the one line I’d never expect in this moment.

“Spiderman. Batman. Superman. Ironman.”

And it hits me like a ton of bricks. What he’s trying to tell me with the simple, whispered statement. My heart falls and my head screams. “No, no, no, no!”

I drop to my knees in front of him, reaching out my hands to the side of his face and direct it up so that his eyes can meet mine. And I cringe when he flinches at my touch. He’s petrified to take this first step toward healing. Scared of what I think of him now that I know his secrets. Worried about what kind of man I perceive him to be, because in his eyes, he allowed this to happen to him. He’s ashamed I’ll judge him based on the scars that still rule his mind, body, and soul.

And he couldn’t be any further from the truth.

I sit and wait patiently, my fingers trembling on his cheeks for some time until green eyes flicker up and look at me with a pain I can’t imagine reflected in them.

“There are so many things I want and need to say to you right now … so many things,” I say, allowing my voice to tremble, my tears to fall, and goose bumps to blanket my entire body, “that I want to say to the little boy that you were and to the incredible man you are.” He forces a swallow as his muscle in his jaw tics, trying to rein back the tears pooling in his eyes. I see fear mixed with disbelief in them.

And I also see hope. It’s just beneath the surface waiting for the chance to feel safe, to feel protected, to feel loved for it to spring to life, but it’s there.

I am in awe of the vulnerability he is entrusting me with, because I can’t imagine how hard it is to open yourself up when all you’ve ever known is pain. I rub my thumb over his cheek and bottom lip as he stares at me, and I find the words I need to convey the truth he needs to hear.

“Colton Donavan, this is not your fault. If you hear one thing I tell you, please let it be this. You’ve carried this around with you for so long and I need you to hear me tell you that nothing you did as a child, or as a man, deserved what happened to you.” His eyes widen and he turns his body some, opens up his protective posture, and I’m hoping it’s a reflection of how he feels with me. That he’s listening, understanding, hearing. Because there are so many things I’ve wanted to say to him for so long about things I’d assumed, and now I know. Now I can express them.

“You have nothing to be ashamed of, then, now, or ever. I am in awe of your strength.” He starts to argue with me and I just put a finger to his lips to quiet him before I repeat what I was saying. “I am in awe of your strength to keep this bottled up for all this time and not self-destruct. You are not damaged or fucked up or hopeless, but rather resilient and brave and honorable.” My voice breaks with the last word, and I can feel his chin quiver beneath my hand because my words are so hard to hear after thinking the opposite for so very long, but he keeps his eyes on mine. And that alone signals that he’s opening himself up to the notion of healing.

“You came from a place of unfathomable pain and yet you … you’re this incredible light who has helped to heal me, has helped to heal my boys.” I shake my head trying to find the words to relay how I feel. So he understands there is so much light in him when all he’s seen for so long is darkness.

“Ry,” he sighs, and I can see him struggling with accepting the truth in my words.

“No, Colton. It’s true, baby. I can’t imagine how hard it was to ask your dad for the help to find your mother. I can’t imagine how you felt taking that call today. I can’t fathom how hard it was for you to just confess the secret that has weighed so heavy on your soul for so very long … but please know this, your secret is safe with me.”

He sniffles back a sob, his eyes blinking rapidly, his expression pained, and I lean forward and press a soft kiss to his lips—a touch of physicality to reassure the both of us. I press a kiss to his nose and then rest my forehead against his, trying to take a moment to absorb all of this.

“Thank you for trusting enough to share with me,” I whisper to him, my words feathering over his lips. And he doesn’t respond, but I don’t need him to. We sit like this, forehead to forehead, accepting and comforting each other and the boundaries that have been crossed.

I don’t expect him to share any more, so when he starts to speak, I’m startled. “Growing up I didn’t know how to deal with it all, how to cope.” The absolute shame in his voice washes over me, my mind reeling from the loneliness he must have endured as a teenager. I rub my thumb back and forth over his cheek so that he knows I’m here, knows I’m listening. He sighs softly, his breath heating my lips as he finishes his confession.

“I tried quickly to prove that I wasn’t damned to Hell even though he did those things to me. I ran through the gamut of girls in high school to prove to myself otherwise. It made me feel good—to be wanted and desired by females—because it took that fear away … but then it also became my way of coping … my mechanism. Pleasure to bury the pain.”

I whisper it the same time he does. The line he said to me in the Florida hotel room that stuck with me, ate at me, because I wanted to understand why he felt that way. And I get it now. I get the sleeping around. The fuck ’em and chuck ’em. All of them a way to prove to himself that he was not scarred by his past. A way to place a temporary Band-Aid over the open wounds that never healed.