Chapter 27: Ian’s Redemption

Ian saw Rachel by accident.

She was crossing the street near the café, sunlight catching in her hair, laughing at something her friend had said. She looked different—lighter, sharper somehow. More herself. The version of her that existed before fear had crept in. Before him.

She didn’t see him.

Ian watched just long enough to register the ache of it: the realisation that whatever had passed between them no longer belonged to him. She moved on. He stood still.

That night, the house felt too quiet.

The old place had echoed with absence; this one absorbed it. The walls were bare, the air stale. He sat alone longer than he meant to, phone in hand, telling himself not to do the thing he already felt sliding into motion as he scrolled through old messages and images he should have deleted. His body reacted before his mind caught up, habit stepping in where resolve had thinned.

He broke.

It wasn’t novelty he chased, or pleasure in any clean sense. It was familiarity warped into compulsion. He began with Rachel—how she’d looked that day, the ease in her movement, the version of her that no longer belonged to him. The thoughts spiralled, narrowing, until he found himself typing a username he’d created months earlier. A name that wasn’t his. A door he already knew the way through.

Purdey.

What they had been. What he’d thrown away. The intimacy he no longer had any right to remember like this, transformed into digital content he now consumed with desperate hunger.

Afterwards, there was no relief—only the familiar drop. Shame settling heavy in his chest, the room unchanged, the silence louder than before. He slept badly, waking to the same hollow recognition: he was still here, still alone, still himself.

The next day, he sat across from his therapist and didn’t soften it.

“I relapsed,” Ian said. His voice was flat, stripped of defensiveness. “Not casually. Not accidentally.”

He stared at the floor.

“I don’t want to be that man anymore. I don’t want to live in that headspace—using people I’ve loved to avoid sitting with what I’ve done.”

He looked up then, eyes tired but clear.

“So tell me,” he said. “What do I do when the loneliness hits and my brain reaches for the fastest way out? How do I break the cycle—for real this time?”

The question hung there, unanswered. But for the first time, he didn’t fill the silence with excuses.

Once again, Ian found himself in the same small therapy office, surrounded by motivational posters that felt less encouraging than accusatory. Outside of it, he had joined a support group, perching on plastic chairs beneath fluorescent lights that showed every tired line on his face. He deleted his social media accounts one by one, severing digital ties with a methodical calm that surprised him. Then came the letters—one to each woman he’d fathered children with—offering financial support without conditions or expectation. Each envelope felt heavier than the last.

Now he sat stiffly in the vinyl chair, hands cupped around a paper cup of lukewarm tea. The clock’s second hand blurred into a slow smear. The room smelled faintly of lemon polish and old coffee. On the wall, a framed photograph of a mountain range attempted steadiness. Ian understood the appeal.

“Why are you here?” the therapist asked, without judgment, like someone reopening a familiar file.

He began with the lines he’d practised. They unravelled quickly.

So he stopped rehearsing.

He told her about the nights. About how loneliness narrowed his thinking, how familiarity masqueraded as comfort. He named the pattern without dressing it up. He said the word addiction and felt it land—not like a confession, but like a fact.

“You want accountability,” she said, not as a question.

Ian nodded. The relief surprised him.

She wrote as they spoke, neat and deliberate on a yellow pad: two sessions a week for three months; a sponsor; a shared contact log for accountability; clear boundaries around certain names and places. She added a clause he hadn’t expected but didn’t resist—full transparency with Purdey if asked, and immediate reporting of cravings to his sponsor.

He agreed to all of it.

When the session ended, Ian stepped back into daylight with the folded page in his pocket. The plan felt small and heavy at once—less like escape, more like labour.

“You’re making progress,” the therapist said during their third month together, in an office that now smelled faintly of lemon polish and books that had been handled often. “But recovery isn’t linear. There will be setbacks.”

“This was the last one,” Ian said. His gaze had drifted to the photo on her desk—Olivia and Lila, smiling, frozen in a moment he couldn’t return to. “I’ve already lost too much.”

The words stayed between them, unargued.

The therapist reached into a drawer and slid a glossy trifold brochure across the desk. “You’ve mentioned not wanting more children,” she said gently. “This might be worth considering.”

Ian looked down at the pamphlet on vasectomies. He didn’t touch it straight away.

Another ending, he thought. But also a line drawn.

He folded the brochure carefully and placed it beside his notes.

Late evening on a rooftop bar, laughter floated above the city lights like champagne bubbles in the cool night air. The skyline glittered against the indigo darkness, a thousand electric stars framing the scene. Ian felt a nudge at his arm—warm skin against his—and turned to see Rachel, flanked by friends, her grin easy and familiar in a way that twisted something inside him. Her Black Opium perfume, bold with notes of coffee and white flowers anchored by rich vanilla, enveloped him as the gentle breeze carried it his way. The memory of what he’d once allowed himself—the rapid descent, the nights lost in a blur of bodies and regret—ticked through his mind with the persistence of the bass throbbing beneath their feet. This was the same trajectory that had felled him before.

Her eyes flicked toward him, playful, testing, glinting in the amber glow of the overhead string lights. A hand grabbed at his cock, as two other blonde beauties pressed their bodies against him—warm, soft curves against his torso, the scent of different perfumes mingling into an intoxicating cloud. “Hey Mr King, Rachel tells us you have a huge package, would you let us see it tonight?” The words tickled his ear, hot breath carrying the sweet tang of vodka and cranberry. Ian could feel himself get harder, the blood rushing, fabric tightening uncomfortably—it was enough to remind him of what he had once wanted. Ian’s stomach tightened, a reflexive ache he knew too well, like swallowing ice.

He pressed his palm against his thigh, feeling the rough denim beneath his fingertips, and remembered the pad in his pocket: names, codes, and the calls he had promised to make. The paper crinkled slightly as he shifted. He pictured the tired, expectant face of his therapist, the leather chair creaking as she leaned forward, the sober-day checks on his calendar—each one a small victory marked in bold red ink. He imagined his daughters laughing over pancakes, the sticky-sweet smell of maple syrup, the sunlight catching in their hair, and the fragile, empty promises he had made to them. His throat constricted at the thought. He thought of the life he had started to build—the one he couldn’t throw away tonight, solid beneath his feet like the concrete of the city below.

“Come on,” Rachel said, her hand stoking him, the friction electric even through his clothes. He was 80% erect, her friends teasing, giggling like wind chimes, inviting him into the familiar chaos. Their eyes sparkled with mischief in the dim light, their lipstick gleaming wet and tempting.

Ian smiled—slow, deliberate, a smile that belonged to someone else now. The muscles in his face felt strange, like he was trying on an old mask that no longer fit. The night air suddenly felt clearer in his lungs. “Not tonight,” he said. The words felt both ordinary and enormous, hanging in the space between them like the last note of a song.

He stepped back, leaving the warmth of the circle behind, and five minutes later, he called his sponsor. The small wave of adrenaline that followed carried with it a quiet pride. He had faltered before, but tonight, he had chosen the longer, harder road.

The streets were quiet as Ian drove home, city lights blurring against the windshield. The adrenaline from the rooftop lingered, but he had pulled back. That mattered.

The house greeted him with silence. He made a cup of tea and sat at the kitchen table, opening his journal.

Tonight I chose the longer road.

He wrote what had happened, how he had resisted, and how he felt. Each line was a small act of accountability, a reminder that he still had control.

Later, in the dark, he listened to the hum of the city. The ache of loneliness was there, but it was real. And for the first time in a long while, Ian felt the possibility of a rhythm built on deliberate choice rather than compulsion.

It had been nearly four months since Ian had bought the dilapidated house—a decision made in the dark days when every morning felt like climbing a mountain. He’d taken two months off work, borrowed tools and manpower from friends, and turned what would have been a six-month job into four. The physical labour was therapeutic; each repaired wall and fresh coat of paint washed away pieces of the past that had haunted him. Looking around at what he’d accomplished, he allowed himself a small, quiet pride. The transformation of the house mirrored his own internal rebuilding—broken things could be fixed with enough care and effort. For the first time in years, Ian felt hopeful about tomorrow.

When Purdey called, asking if he could take the girls while she worked in Singapore for three months on and three months off over the next year, Ian could hardly believe it. After years of tension and carefully negotiated weekend visits, she looked him in the eye and said, “I’m giving you one last chance, Ian. Don’t make me regret this.”