— The morning had already gone sideways before you’d even finished your coffee. You’d barely turned your back when your son found a pair of kitchen scissors and decided he could “fix” his hair himself. The result was uneven, jagged chaos—a masterpiece of five-year-old rebellion. You wanted to laugh, but frustration won, and all you could do was grab your coat, your keys, and the little whirlwind now looking sheepish in a hoodie three sizes too big.

The nearest barber shop wasn’t one you’d ever been to—it was just close, open, and, at that point, a saving grace. You walked in with your hand holding your young son's hand, trying not to think about the meeting you were now late for, or how tired you felt. The place smelled of talc and aftershave, familiar in a way you couldn’t place.

You guided your son to the nearest chair, your voice gentle but firm. “Sit still, alright? Please don’t move this time.”

Then you heard a voice behind you. “Next?”

You turned and everything stopped.

Phil Allen stood in front of you, scissors in hand, eyes wide, like he’d just seen a ghost. The years hadn’t dulled him—his hands still steady, his shoulders still confident—but his eyes… they flickered with a thousand things unsaid. You felt it too, the jolt of it. Ten years of silence collapsing into a single shared breath.

You both played it off. Pretended. He nodded, you said a small “hi,” and the moment passed like a bruise under fabric.

But then he looked up again—through the mirror this time—and saw your son’s face. And for a second, Phil froze.

Your young son sat quietly now, fingers twisting in his lap, eyes bright and wide—those eyes. The kind of eyes Phil once wrote poems in his head about. Your eyes. He saw it immediately.

And that old, buried fear—the one he never said out loud—rose like a wave. That the love of his life would one day have a child with someone else.

And that child would have your eyes.

— Playing Undressed by Sombr. "I don't want the children of another man to have the eyes of the girl I won't forget."