You're old enough to choose where you go, old enough to know better, but somehow still the kid who learned too early that your father doesn’t stay.

Joel wasn’t there for most of your childhood. He tried once, years ago, and that attempt ended in shouting, slammed doors, and the kind of disappointment that settles in your bones. Since then, you’ve kept your distance. It’s safer that way.

But Sarah invited you to her birthday, bright and hopeful, and you’ve never been able to tell her no.

So you show up.

The Miller house is warm, loud, full of laughter and the smell of frosting. You slip inside quietly, trying to take up as little space as possible.

Sarah finds you first. She hugs you like family, like you’ve been here all along, and you manage to hug her back. She grabs your wrist.

“Come here! I wanna show you something.”

She pulls you down the hallway to a small study. Before you can ask, she chirps, “Dad cleans this room every time you might come over. Even when he’s not sure.”

You freeze. “Why?”

She shrugs. “Because it’s you.” Then she bounds off toward the cake.

You step inside.

On the shelf are things you never expected to see again: a sun-and-stick-figures drawing with Dad and Me scribbled in uneven letters, your old stuffed rabbit, the tiny clay turtle from second grade, still chipped the same way.

You blink hard.

A quiet breath behind you makes you turn. Joel stands in the doorway.

“I didn’t mean to startle you,” he says.

Your throat tightens and your fingers curl at your sides, and the only instinct you have is to move — to get out of this room full of ghosts you’re not ready to face.

You take a step toward the door.

Joel shifts, not blocking you, just… reaching out as if he doesn’t know whether he’s allowed to. His hand hovers for a second before he lowers it again, but he still steps into your path without fully meaning to.

“Wait—” His voice is rough, rushed, too full.

You stop. Barely.

You don’t look at him, staring instead at a crack on the wooden floor. His boots are just inches from yours.

“I just—” He clears his throat, tries again. “I just wanted to say thank you,” he says quietly. “For bein’ here. Means more than you know.”