Meeting Percy

I was completely happy on my own. Content with my new life as a single woman, and no longer looking for love—when it rang my doorbell at 1:00 a.m.

After my car accident and the physical toll it took on me, I finally felt justified in quitting my hours at JAWI Fitness Center. But that didn’t mean I stopped teaching fitness classes. I found a small, family-owned fitness center in Prinsenbeek, a town next to my new home town of Breda, and close to my apartment. They offered me a few hours a week and I took it. One of them was my favorite: a Power Hour on Sundays—a high-energy interval workout for men and women. The same kind of class I’d loved teaching on Sunday mornings at JAWI. A few of my old crew even drove down to Prinsenbeek to join us. 

One regular at Power Hour stood out: a boyish-looking guy with beautiful blond curls that nearly reached his shoulders, kept out of his face by a grey ball cap. His hazel eyes hinted at a great sense of humor. Not that I could really look into those eyes—sweat was usually dripping down my face while I was shouting out reps—but we often shared a coffee at the gym bar after class. That’s when I started to catch glimpses of his personality.

I figured he was maybe twenty—early twenties at most. Young, bright, and not exactly smooth when it came to flirting. 

His name was Percy. As it turned out, he wasn’t younger at all. In fact, he was a year and a half older than I was. He had graduated with a double Bachelor’s and was already working as a software engineer at Rüttchen, a local car dealership. Graduated and working already? I honestly thought he was still in university and just trying to impress me. I must’ve made it clear that I had a hard time believing him—because the following week, he showed up to class with his diploma in hand. 

Over the weeks, our conversations became more personal. We discovered that we’d both been to the Grand Canyon—around the same time, had sat on the same rock, and experienced the same overwhelming silence and beauty of nature. His openness, his humor, and his sensitivity touched something deep in me. I didn’t mean to let him in. But he softened my stiff armor. Piece by littlest piece, I let him break down my defenses.

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My apartment was above a grocery store and this one Friday afternoon—who did I bump into? Percy! We laughed and chatted some. I also told him I lived right above the store.

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It was one of the rare Saturday nights that I was not in the city, and I had gone to bed early. A good night’s sleep was what I needed for teaching my Power Hour the next morning. Almost asleep, I heard a faint sound in the distance.

Rrringgg…

Was I hearing this correctly?

Rrringgg… again.

Was someone ringing my doorbell downstairs? Sure sounded like it. What time was it? 1:00 AM?!?

I got up and hesitantly pressed the intercom button.

“Hello?”

I heard a big sigh on the other end of the line. Then a brief pause, and a relieved: “Hi, it’s Percy.” 

I was befuddled. “Get out of here!”

“Well, actually," he replied, "I was hoping I could see you. Can I come up?”

I hesitated for a second. No men allowed. Up to that moment, I had honored the boundary I had set to protect myself and my safe space. Was I breaking this promise to myself?

I took a moment for a quick check-in with myself. I had to verify with that little voice inside me. The voice that had tried to warn me before—the one I didn’t listen to then.

What did it tell me now?

...It was quiet.

No matter the unlikely circumstances, I somehow sensed it was okay to open the door for this man who showed up in the middle of the night.

Was I really doing this?

Yup.

I pressed the buzzer and waited, listening to his footsteps on the stairs.

He greeted me with a big smile. His familiar grey ball cap on his blond curls. A grey sweater with a small turtleneck, knitted by his mom, hung too big on his shoulders. Jeans.

I invited him in and offered him a beer, while I made a cup of tea for myself. We positioned ourselves on opposite corners of my couch. He looked a bit awkward the way he sat there—like he didn’t know what to do with himself.

Was he nervous? I guess he was, because he admitted he'd had a few beers before finding the courage to come over. That he’d stood in front of that entry door before but didn’t dare to ring any of the bells. But tonight, he felt brave enough to start pressing every buzzer label with a first initial “B.” Before he heard my voice, he’d already received a few angry “There’s no Bo here!” responses to his question if he could speak to Bo.

And then he began sharing this old Greek myth with me. 

He took a sip of his beer and looked at the label on the bottle as if it would help him find the right words. 

“Okay,” he started, “have you ever heard of the Greek myth about soulmates?”

I shook my head. He smiled, like he’d just been given permission to tell his favorite story.

“So,” he said, “way back, humans weren’t like they are now. We used to be round—like, really round. We had four arms, four legs, two faces on one head. And we rolled around everywhere, kind of like spinning tops.” He made a gesture with his hands like a ball tumbling. “Apparently, we were too powerful. The gods got scared, so Zeus sliced us all in half—right down the middle. To break us up.”

I raised an eyebrow. “Charming.”

“Yeah, well,” he laughed, “that’s Greek mythology for you. But here’s the part that stuck with me—ever since I first read it. After the split, each half spent their lives searching for the other. That’s what love is, according to the myth. That deep sense that someone out there belongs with you because... they literally were you. And we’re spending our entire lives looking for our other half.

And you are my other half.”

I didn’t say anything. Couldn’t. Just hugged him. Poured myself a glass of wine. And we talked, and talked, and talked. For hours. 

He revealed that he was actually on his honeymoon when he visited the Grand Canyon. And when he saw me at the fitness center for the first time, he knew he’d made a mistake with his marriage. “Marrying her felt... expected of me,” he said quietly. “She checked all the right boxes. She was a nurse, so was well educated—I assumed that was important to my parents when they pictured a partner for me—and she came from a good family. I believed my parents liked her and that they approved. And I thought that would be enough. That I just needed time to get to loving her.” He nervously picked on his ball cap—now in his lap. “That’s a lot of assumptions. I realize that now,” he said, “but I didn’t at the time. I just wondered why I never felt it. Not fully. Not in my gut. I thought it was just me.”

He hesitated… there was more he wanted to tell me. “She also hit me once,” he whispered. “On the ear. So hard, it bled. So yeah, that too. And then I saw you. And it was like—suddenly I had words for something I’d only felt deep down.”

He looked at me—not pleading, not dramatic. Just open. Honest. “And in that moment, I knew. I knew I hadn’t made the right choice with her. You were. You are the woman I want to be with.” 

He also admitted he couldn't keep living a lie with his wife, and that he filed for divorce a few weeks earlier. 

That. Right there. He’d filed for divorce weeks before he rang my doorbell. Without knowing how I’d react. Without even knowing if I’d open the door. And still, he chose to live his truth. He believed it was only fair to her, too—to end the marriage, even one that had only just begun. 

That—right there—was why I could begin to trust a man again. Not any man. It was why I could trust him.

We hugged again. A tingle in my stomach. Was that the first butterfly? Could it be?

We also discovered we had likely crossed paths a few times in our lives already. He told me he’d seen me before—years earlier—at a Judo studio we both attended back in Alphen aan den Rijn. I must have been no older than twelve at the time. His Judo class was scheduled right after my self-defense class.

“Did you have a green army bag, covered with punk buttons?” he asked.

I laughed. “Oh my god—yes! That was totally me.”

We’d also both worked in Amsterdam and had gotten off at the same train station for about a year.

He didn’t leave until the sky started to color a beautiful pink above my orange curtains. The world looked and felt different from yesterday. My heart felt lighter. Softer. Did last night really happen?

I took a shower and got dressed. As every Sunday morning, I drove to my sister to pick her up to go to the fitness center for my Power Hour. Couldn’t wait to tell her! 

“Sis, the weirdest thing happened to me last night. And I think I may have a boyfriend.”

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This piece is an excerpt from my memoir-in-progress: The Woman I Had to Find.

In it, I explore my experiences with abuse and generational trauma—not to place blame or to relive the past, but to offer a path forward. My story isn’t mine alone. By sharing it, I hope to help fellow survivors move toward emotional freedom. Like I did—because in the end, mine is a story of redemption. One with a happy ending.

Alongside the book, I’ve founded The Inner Circle—a private, women-only space for victims of abuse and generational trauma. A place to feel heard, supported, and understood without the need to explain. We meet once a month for connection, reflection, and growth.

I offer two sessions — one in English and one in Dutch — and both are completely free to join.