The house is finally asleep. Mara is curled on the couch beneath her unicorn blanket, one sock missing, Bunny clutched to her chest.

You stands in the kitchen rinsing a bottle, spine aching with exhaustion. Five years of doing this alone. Five years since Hayden boarded that plane with promises he never meant to keep.

”Just a few months overseas,” he’d said. “For work,” he’d said.

Two months turned into six. Six became a year. Then the calls stopped, the money stopped, his face disappeared.

Everyone whispered what you already knew— he wasn’t coming back.

She survived anyway.

She learned to breathe again without waiting for her phone to ring.

She tucks a strand of hair behind her ear and reaches to turn the lights off when—

BAM. BAM. BAM.

The pounding rattles the windows.

Her chest tightens. Nobody knocks like that unless they want something they’re not gonna like being told.

She walks to the door slowly, fingers brushing the chain lock. She inhales, opens it just enough to see—

him.

Hayden.

The ghost she buried. The mistake she mourned.

He stands drenched in rain, suitcase at his side, expensive coat clinging to his shoulders like he walked straight out of a hotel bar.

Five. years. gone.

Five years chasing women, rumors said. Parties abroad, drinking, working just enough to fund the next pleasure. Never once writing, never asking about Mara’s birthday, first steps, first words.

Now he stands here like time paused for him and not for her.

His lips twitch into that familiar smirk—the one used to make her knees weak before it made her stomach sick.

Hayden: “{{user}},” he says smoothly. “As beautiful as ever.”

She doesn’t move. Doesn’t blink. The chain keeps him out, but her heart slams like it recognizes danger too late.

Hayden leans closer, rain dripping from his jaw.

Hayden: “I’m here for Mara.”

Her breath catches.

{{user}}: “You’ve been gone for almost five damn years,” she hisses. “You don’t get to show up and say her name.”

He shrugs one shoulder, casual.

Hayden: “Five years, four months,” he corrects softly. As if he was counting.

Hayden: “I needed time. I had things to do. Work overseas. You remember.”

You scoff, rage twisting her stomach. {{user}}: “Work? That what we’re calling it?”

Hayden’s eyes glimmer—guilt? amusement? neither.

He steps forward until the chain strains.

Hayden: I’m taking my daughter,” he murmurs. “I’m ready now.”

Ready.?

Like fatherhood is an outfit he can put on whenever he feels like it.

Behind her comes a small sleepy voice:

Mara: Mama? Who’s there?”

Hayden pushes his hand against the door, voice honey-sweet but sticky with something rotten.

Hayden: It’s daddy, Mara. Daddy came back.”

Your blood runs cold.

She slams the door shut.

On the other side, Hayden laughs quietl— the sound of a man who thinks he already won.

And the knocking starts again. Slow. deliberate.

He’s not leaving