Chapter 1: After the Fall

There’s a moment that doesn’t show up on calendars or clocks — the moment when something breaks, and never returns to what it was. For Stephen, that moment didn’t come with shouting or slammed doors. It came quietly, like the soft click of a door closing from the other side of the world. The sound of a message seen, but not answered. The voice that used to whisper “Goodnight, Stevie” now missing for days, weeks — and then altogether.

But that wasn’t the beginning of the end. It was the middle of the collapse.

And the truth is, most collapses don’t announce themselves. They seep. They leak into the floorboards of a love you thought was fireproof.

Stephen wasn’t just some guy online. He was the man who helped raise her children. Who paid the tuition, the electricity, the birthday parties, the legal bills, the hospital admissions. He didn’t love from a distance. He stood in the fire.

When she was coughing blood, he was the one wiring money to buy medicine. When her family disowned her, he was the one who said, “You’re still chosen.” He sat through court hearings in silence. He carried secrets. He protected her name. And when the world turned its back on her, Stephen was still there — holding her story like it was scripture.

He called her Honey. And she once called him husband.

The collapse didn’t start all at once. It started with little things:

• Shorter messages
• Sudden coldness after warmth
• “Seen” but no reply
• Delays that had never been there before

And then came Joe. Loud. Charming. Fast. Dangerous.

And for a while, it looked like Stephen was being replaced by someone who didn’t know the full story — but wanted the spotlight anyway.

Stephen held his tongue longer than he should have. He gave the benefit of the doubt. He blamed himself.
“Maybe I’m too blunt.”
“Maybe I pushed too hard.”
“Maybe she’s just tired.”

But in his gut, he knew. Something was happening. And it was erasing him.

And that was the fall — not just of a relationship, but of the story he had believed in for nearly a decade.

When people hear “kissed the wrong frog,” they assume it’s about him. They’re wrong. Stephen wasn’t the wrong frog. He was the right man, kissed at the right time, by someone who didn’t know yet what covenant meant.

The real tragedy wasn’t her mistake. It was that when she finally realized it, she wasn’t sure how to come back.

The tumor didn’t help.

Glioblastoma was the ghost in the machine. The thing that had been eating away at him silently, even while he was fighting to keep her afloat.

For months he thought he was just tired, emotional, unraveling. But the truth was darker: his brain had been bleeding. His body was breaking down while he was still trying to send GCash for the kids' birthdays.

Even after the crash.
Even after Sue wrote her the email.
Even after silence swallowed their daily rhythm...

He still called her his wife.
He still said, “If I live long enough, I will marry you.”
Even when she wasn’t answering anymore.

This isn’t a chapter about bitterness. It’s a chapter about carrying love even when it stops carrying you back. It’s about remembering the difference between romance and covenant. It’s about a man who didn’t stop being a father, even when the kids were silent.

Did she betray him? Yes.
Did she lie sometimes? Yes.
Did she run when things got too real? Absolutely.

But Stephen never stopped holding space for her.

And that — more than any fairytale — is what separates the frog from the prince.