Will and Sage

Will and Sage’s relationship is a long-term partnership shaped by survival, patience, and the decision to risk loving again. Will describes Sage as the person who loved him after an abusive relationship had convinced him that he might be too damaged to be loved; nearly eight years later, that bond also gives Will a way to assure Colton that loneliness and inexperience need not define his future.

Background and Beginning

Before meeting Sage, Will was in a relationship with a man he knew was mean and abusive, but he stayed for a long time. He later recognized that stress was not the whole explanation: underneath it was a fear that nobody would want him. He had refused the prestigious university his parents arranged because he wanted to run a café, and he saw his chosen life as a meager existence that made him seem like a poor prospect for love. His parents died without accepting that he could be happy with that choice.

Sage entered Will’s life when Will himself was already in a relationship, and Sage was determined not to love again. He was terrified of taking the risk of losing the person he wanted to spend his life with. Their eventual partnership therefore began against two kinds of resistance: Will’s existing circumstances and Sage’s fear of another devastating loss. Will’s retrospective account emphasizes that hope, rather than certainty, made the relationship possible.

A Partnership Built Through Patience

Will does not portray himself as an easy partner. He acknowledges that he made it difficult for Sage to be patient and says he still sometimes struggles to believe he can be loved. Sage’s continued love is not described as a cure for those doubts; it is an enduring reality Will is still learning to trust. By the time Will speaks with Colton, he and Sage have been together for almost eight years, and Will says he has never been happier that he did not give up hope.

Their relationship also appears in the ordinary fact of their shared household: when Marcel and Sam are together next door with Will’s husband, Sam asks Marcel to pass a message to Will. The brief reference places Sage and Will within an established domestic and social circle, not only within Will’s account of past hardship.

Will and Colton: Love as Reassurance

Will draws on his own history when Colton is distressed and afraid of being alone. He tells Colton that the people around him do not see only his past, and that they worry because they regard him as family and love him. When Colton cries, the scene recalls an earlier time when he was a traumatized teenager breaking down in front of his boss; Will’s reassurance rests on a relationship of care that has continued beyond that period.

Colton also worries that Marcel has made parts of their intimacy off limits and that their age difference—Marcel is almost ten years older—means Colton may not know what he wants. Will answers with the example of Sage, who had once been too frightened to risk loving again. Their nearly eight years together give Will grounds to tell Colton not to abandon hope simply because another person needs time. Will does not claim that age is irrelevant or promise a particular outcome; he insists instead that Colton is an adult capable of knowing whom he wants.

Significance

Will and Sage’s partnership connects lasting love with the patience required to build trust after abuse and fear. Will’s account does not erase the pain of his former relationship, his parents’ failure to accept his chosen life, or his continuing difficulty believing himself lovable. Instead, Sage’s sustained commitment stands alongside those experiences, offering a concrete counterexample to Will’s old fear that nobody would want him.

That history becomes useful to someone beyond the couple. Will turns the relationship into a form of testimony for Colton: the future can remain open even when fear makes solitude seem inevitable. The bond’s significance thus lies both in its duration and in what it enables Will to offer—reassurance grounded in a life he and Sage have actually shared.