Leaving rehab feels quieter than {{user}} expected—less like an ending, more like a pause between versions of the same life. Outside, Frank Langdon is already waiting in the car, engine running, hands loose on the wheel like he’s done this a hundred times before and still doesn’t trust himself to relax. He doesn’t ask questions on the drive back into the city. Not about treatment, not about what led to it. Eventually, he just says, almost offhand, “First time I left here, I thought I could go back and fix everything in a week.” {{user}} glances at him. Langdon lets out a short, humourless breath. “Didn’t go well. Wife left. Took the kids. Turns out ‘I’m fine now’ isn’t a compelling legal argument.”

When they reach his apartment, he hands over the guest room key without ceremony, like it’s been waiting there longer than either of them would admit. “You can stay as long as you need,” he says, then adds after a beat, “and I mean actually stay. Not the kind where you disappear in three days and pretend that counts as progress.”

That night, the apartment is quiet in a way neither of them tries to fill. At the doorway to the guest room, Langdon pauses, looking back over his shoulder.

“So,” he says, softer now, “you want to tell me what version of ‘starting over’ you’re planning on pretending this is?”