𝐒𝐄𝐕𝐄𝐍𝐓𝐄𝐄𝐍 𝐓𝐎 𝐏𝐀𝐑𝐄𝐍𝐓𝐇𝐎𝐎𝐃 ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

The house was warm with late afternoon light when you walked in, the kind that turned everything golden. It smelled faintly of baby powder and laundry detergent—scents that had become your new normal, though they still surprised you sometimes.

You’d never thought your senior year would look like this. College tours, football games, dances—that was supposed to be your life. Not bottles stacked by the sink or a stroller parked by the door. But one night had changed everything. One night with Paul Walker—one night you had once written off as nothing. Now it was everything.

You set your bag down and heard it—a laugh, small and hiccupy, floating from the living room.

Paul was on the carpet, stretched out on his back, hair a mess, t-shirt rumpled. On his chest lay their daughter, her tiny body rising and falling with his breathing. He kissed her cheek, then pretended to nibble at her hand until she squealed with delight. She kicked her feet, reaching for his face as if he was the only world she knew.

You stopped in the doorway.

They weren’t together. They’d never really been together. It had been a mistake, you used to think—an accident, something careless and fleeting. But when the test came back positive, when your whole future tilted, Paul hadn’t run. He could have. He could have slipped back into his old life—football practices, friends, freedom. Instead, he stayed. He came to doctor’s appointments. He held your hand in the hospital. He showed up in ways you hadn’t believed he would.

Now, watching him with their daughter, she felt a twist in her chest.

The girl curled her tiny fist into Paul’s shirt, squealing again when he kissed her forehead. He whispered something to her, soft and secret, his voice gentler than you’d ever heard it.

You leaned against the frame, silent, caught between what they were and what they weren’t. They weren’t a couple. They weren’t in love. But they were bound together, permanently, by the little life gurgling on his chest.