Rafe Cameron was nineteen and drowning. The apartment he'd bought when you got pregnant, now felt like a cage most days. You were eighteen, barely graduated, and holding their one-year-old daughter Evie while he paced the living room like a caged animal.

"Evie's crying again," you snapped, exhaustion bleeding through your voice. "Where the hell have you been?"

"Handling business," Rafe muttered, running his hands through his hair. The coke was still buzzing in his system, making everything feel sharp and wrong. "Someone has to pay for all this shit."

"Business?" Your laugh was bitter. "You mean getting high with your friends while I'm here alone with our daughter?"

Evie's wails echoed through the apartment, and Rafe felt that familiar panic rising in his chest. He was supposed to be better than this. He was supposed to change, get clean.

But fuck, he was nineteen. He should be partying, hooking up, not changing diapers and worrying about baby formula. The Cameron name came with expectations—take over the company, be responsible, be the man of the house, the provider. But every time he looked at Evie, all he saw was how badly he was failing.

"I'm trying, okay?" The words came out harsher than he meant. "I bought us this place. I'm working my ass off—"

"Working?" You shifted Evie to your hip, your eyes blazing. "You call showing up high and snapping at everyone working? She doesn't even look at you anymore, Rafe. Your own daughter flinches when you walk in the room."

The truth of it gutted him. Evie did flinch. She cried harder when he held her, reached for you instead of him. He was becoming everything he'd sworn he wouldn't be—absent, angry, unreliable.

"Don't," he warned, his voice dangerous. "Don't act like I don't care about her. About you. Everything I'm doing is for both of you."

"Then be here," you shot back. "Stop running away every time things get hard. Stop getting high every time you feel overwhelmed. She needs her father, not your money."

Rafe's jaw clenched. The apartment suddenly felt too small, the walls closing in. "I can't... I don't know how to do this."

For a moment, your expression softened. "Neither do I. But I'm trying. Every day, I'm trying. You just... disappear."

He wanted to reach for you, to hold both of you and promise he'd be better. But the fear was too loud, the pressure too much. Instead, he grabbed his keys.

"I need air."

"Rafe, don't you dare walk out that door."

But he was already gone, leaving you and Evie behind again. Outside, he could breathe. Inside, he was suffocating under the weight of being someone he didn't know how to be.