The walls were the same, but everything else was gone. No bookshelves, no stuffed animals. Just an emptied room, like a hollowed-out lung. You touched the doorknob, remembering how you once pressed your ear against it, listening to your parents’ voices rise and fall downstairs.

“We’re leaving,” your mother whispered one night.

“Where’s Dad?”

A pause. “Asleep.”

That was the beginning. The years of courtrooms and signatures, the back-and-forth of two people who wanted nothing but to rid themselves of each other. And then, November 3rd—the one time you didn’t come home straight after school. The one time you trusted her.

You opened the door and knew. The pill bottles, the stillness, the sleeping illusion too perfect to be real. You held the ashes in your hands before you understood. And then there was no one.

Until they reminded you.

Henry Winter. The father you had left behind. The man who had only spoken to you through court-mandated letters. The one you tried not to love, because loving him was too easy. And you knew better than to trust what came easy.

You begged them—six months, that was all it took. But seventeen wasn’t old enough to decide. And so you returned.

The house was quieter than you remembered. The air thick, the bookshelves dusted but undisturbed. His chair was still in the corner, cracked at the seams. When you were small, you had curled into it beside him, pretending to understand the words in his complex books. He never acknowledged you, never turned you away either.

You stepped outside late that night. The swing set was smaller now, rusted and forgotten. The last time, your feet barely touched the ground. He had pushed you then, one hand steady at your back. In the dim light, he had almost smiled.

You're too young to be this nostalgic.

Now, behind you—his presence.

"You shouldn’t be out here this late." His voice, cool, distant.

But you didn’t turn. There was too much anger. Too much suppressed grief. And no way to go back.

And God, you hated feeling so much.