I don't want to hate you anymore,"

The Reckoning: Two Salford Lads, Twenty Years of Silence, and Nine Days of Grace

Imagine two young lads, Tom and Mick, growing up side-by-side on the rough-and-tumble streets of Salford. 

From five years old, they were inseparable—partners in crime, sharing secrets, cheap fags behind the bike sheds, and the glorious moment of their first legal pint down the Red Lion. They were soulmates, the kind of bond you think nothing can ever break.

But at twenty-three, Mick did the unthinkable: he slept with Tom’s girlfriend, Lisa.

Tom found out the cruel way these things always unfold—a mutual friend, drunk and loose-tongued, dropped the devastating truth in the pub. Tom didn’t rage or yell. He simply went stone-cold silent, drained his glass, and walked out of Mick’s life. The next day, he delivered his sentence: never come near me again. 

For two decades, that silence held firm. Twenty years without a phone call, a birthday wish, or a shared memory.

Tom built a new life, married, and drove lorries across the country. Mick stayed put, working his factory job and drinking at the same old bar, but the absence of his oldest friend was a gaping, painful hole he carried everywhere.

The Call to the Hospice

The universe, however, had its own cruel timing. Last Bonfire Night, Tom was having tests for his heart in a Manchester hospital. It was a routine check, but lying there in a flimsy gown, mortality felt close. That very evening, Mick’s aunt rang him.

"It's Mick, love. He's badly. It's cancer. They say he’s got weeks left."

Tom sat frozen on the plastic hospital chair. The hatred he’d carefully nurtured for two decades felt cheap and pointless. He drove straight to the hospice on the edge of town.

Mick was frail, skeletal, hooked up to tubes. He looked utterly spent. The moment he saw Tom standing in the doorway, Mick’s eyes, those familiar, silly eyes, instantly welled up.

"I never thought I’d see your face again, Tommy," he rasped.

Tom pulled the chair close. The air was thick with twenty years of unspoken hurt.

"I was a right bastard," Mick finally choked out, tears running into his grey stubble. "I've hated myself for it every bloody day."

"I hated you too, Mick," Tom admitted honestly, his voice quiet. "Properly hated you. Spent years imagining giving you the punch you deserved."

Mick managed a tiny, wheezing cough of a laugh. "Wouldn't have blamed you, mate."

Looking at the dying man, Tom saw beyond the betrayal, seeing only the scared boy he grew up with. A heavy knot that had been tight in his chest for half his life finally gave way.

"I don't want to hate you anymore," Tom whispered. "Life’s too damn short. I just... I forgive you, alright? I properly forgive you."

Mick closed his eyes, silent tears flooding his temples. "Thank you, Tommy. Thank you."

Still Best Mates

For the next nine days, they recaptured a lifetime. They talked about pinching apples, that wild night United won the treble, and all the daft things they’d done. They laughed until Mick coughed, and they cried a bit, too.

When Tom left on the ninth night, Mick gripped his hand with the last of his strength.

"Still best mates?" he asked, sounding like a ten-year-old making up after a playground scrap.

"Always," Tom promised, squeezing back hard.

Mick died that night.

At the funeral, Tom stood and raised a simple pint of bitter in the local pub. "To forgiveness," he said, tears finally falling freely.

"Better late than never." And he drank it with a light, easy heart, finally free of the burden of hate.