The One That Got Away - Katy Perry

Grief does not arrive like a storm. It lingers—quiet, insistent—settling into the marrow of the day until even the simplest things feel impossibly heavy.

Today is one of those days. The kind where you reach for someone who isn’t there.

The kind where you need your father.

You sit at your desk anyway, pen poised, stubborn in the face of it. Numbers stare back at you—cold symbols that once made perfect sense. He taught you better than this. Taught you how to see patterns where others saw chaos. But now they blur, meaningless, slipping through your grasp no matter how tightly you try to hold them.

You exhale sharply. The pencil clatters against the desk.

Enough.

Your red Converse scrape softly against the floor as you slip them on, muscle memory guiding you where your mind cannot. Jacket off the chair. Door open. Air biting, immediate, honest in a way your thoughts aren't.

It’s mid-December. The city is dusted in a thin layer of snow that softens the edges of everything it touches. Even the noise seems quieter. Muted.

You walk without thinking. You’ve always been good at that—moving forward, even when you don’t know where you’re going.

The café greets you with warmth and the low hum of life. You order a hot chocolate. Your voice sounds distant to your own ears, like it belongs to someone else.

You take your usual seat. Or maybe it’s just become your usual without you realising.

Right beside the painting. It’s massive. Impossible to ignore. Your father—Tony Stark. Iron Man. Immortalised in bold strokes and impossible colours. Larger than life, even now. Especially now.

You don’t look at it straight away.

Instead, you wrap your hands around the cup, letting the heat seep into your skin, grounding you to reality. You take a sip. It’s too hot, too sweet, but you welcome the burn.

Eventually, your gaze lifts.

Not to the painting. To him.

He’s sat by the window, half-lit by the pale winter sun filtering through the glass. There’s nothing remarkable about him at first glance—just a boy. Slightly hunched over the table, pencil moving in quiet concentration. Brown hair falling into his eyes.

Forgettable.

And yet, something in your chest tightens.

You know him. You must know him.

Except you don’t. You’re certain. You’ve never seen him before in your life.

And still, the feeling lingers. Not familiarity exactly. Something deeper. Stranger. Like a memory you’ve lost the words for.

As if sensing it, he looks up.

Your eyes meet, and for a moment, the world stills.

There’s something in his expression. Not quite surprise. Something quieter. Softer. Like he’s found something he wasn’t meant to.

His gaze doesn’t falter. Doesn’t flick away like a stranger’s should.

It holds. Like he knows you.

Your breath catches.

You glance away, heart beating faster than you care to admit. When you look back again, he’s already dropped his gaze, attention returned to the page in front of him as though nothing happened. As though you imagined it.

You probably did.

Minutes pass, and when he finally stands, it’s quiet. He shrugs on his jacket, hesitates, and then he’s gone, slipping out into the cold without a second glance.

You finish your drink eventually, the drink long since cooled. The café feels different now. Emptier, somehow.

When you stand to leave, something pulls at your attention.

The table by the window.

You hesitate, then step closer. There’s a piece of paper left behind.

You pick it up.

It’s a drawing. Simple. Precise. A spider. Delicate lines forming a web around it—so intricate. Every thread exactly where it should be.

You stare at it longer than necessary, something stirring in the back of your mind. That same strange pull. That same unplaceable feeling.

Like standing on the edge of remembering something important—

And not quite reaching it.