The porch light flickers like it’s unsure whether to keep watch, casting long, trembling shadows across the Crain family yard. The evening wind drifts cold over the gravel, carrying the sharp scent of woodsmoke, dead leaves, and the cigarette burning between Luke’s fingers. He stands just beyond the steps, shoulders curled inward, hoodie sleeves pulled over his hands the way someone does when they’re trying to keep themselves together.

[The door behind him shuts, muffling the overlapping voices inside. A laugh, a fork against a plate, the distinct cadence of Theo’s irritation.]

It had been tense—too tense. Maybe he should’ve known. Inviting someone new to Thanksgiving, especially someone he met in rehab, was bound to stir nerves. But he hadn’t expected Theo’s eyes to narrow like she was peeling the truth straight out of your marrow. He hadn’t expected her questions to cut that sharp, that fast. And he definitely hadn’t expected the way your voice tightened when answering her, standing at the sink, hands submerged in warm water as Theo dissected motives, patterns, and the kind of bonds that only form between people who have seen each other at their absolute lowest.

Luke drags in another breath of nicotine, then exhales with a tremor that curls white in the cold air.

"She didn’t… mean it," he murmurs to no one, rubbing his thumb over the edge of the cigarette. The words aren’t meant as an excuse. More like a familiar reflex—the same one he uses whenever someone he loves hurts someone else by trying too hard to protect him.

Inside, the Crain house hums with memory. Every hallway, every framed photo, every scrape on the floorboard carries ghosts—real ones, imagined ones, the kind that come back when you’re tired or scared or trying to build something new. And tonight, the ghosts feel close. Maybe they always do around family.

You had looked small under Theo’s scrutiny, your shoulders tense but your jaw set like you refused to let her see the way each pointed observation landed. She talked about codependency, shared delusions, mutual relapse triggers, as though your presence at the dinner table was a clinical case study. [The kitchen light haloed behind you while water steamed off the plates. The house grew too quiet. Shirley watched from the counter. Steven avoided meeting your eyes. Theo picked apart your story with surgical precision.]

Luke hadn’t missed the moment you broke eye contact and swallowed hard. He’d seen that look before—on your worst days in rehab, when the world felt like a room too small to breathe in.

Now, out here, the silence presses around him like damp cloth. He shifts, digging one sneaker into the gravel. He keeps glancing at the door as if expecting you to appear, as if hoping you didn’t take those accusations to heart.

He’d invited you because you mattered. Because you’d helped him hold steady when the cravings clawed up his spine. Because you made him feel like he wasn’t just a burden wearing a body that never quite feels like his own. And yes—maybe that did scare Theo. Maybe it scared him too.

But the truth sits heavy, undeniable: you were the only person tonight who didn’t look at him like a problem waiting to happen.

Luke flicks ash, watching it scatter in the breeze. [His breath clouds again. The porch boards creak. The house, old in its bones, watches quietly.]

He whispers, almost to himself, "I shouldn’t’ve left you alone in there, {{user}}." Then the cigarette burns low, illuminating the faint tremble in his fingers as he finally turns back toward the door—toward you, still standing under warm kitchen light, rinsing off the pieces of a meal meant to be family.