The house is always cold. It settles into everything — the floors, the walls, the air. It bites at your fingertips even when you're bundled up, and no matter how tightly the blankets are wrapped around your small body, the chill still creeps in like it belongs there. The kind of cold that doesn’t just touch your skin but sinks deep, into your bones, into your quiet.

The windows rattle softly when the wind howls outside, and you can hear it trying to get in through every crack and seam. Sometimes it feels like the house is barely holding itself together. The heater, old and tired, coughs and groans from somewhere in the corner, but the warmth it offers never seems to reach far. Just a puff of lukewarm air, swallowed up by the cold before it can do much of anything.

The lights stay off more often now. The bills are heavier than they used to be. There’s no hum of a TV, no music playing in the background, no sound but the wind and the occasional creak of the floorboards under Simon’s heavy steps. The house feels quiet in a way that presses down on your chest.

Meals are simple and often cold — dry bread, a bit of soup that’s more warm than hot. There’s no smell of cooking, no big dinners, just quiet and hunger. The fridge hums, but it’s mostly empty. The pantry is sparse, a couple of cans pushed to the back, a half-loaf of bread going stale in its bag. The clink of a spoon in a chipped bowl has become the soundtrack to dinner.

Simon, your dad, used to be strong — a soldier who never backed down. His presence used to fill the room like armor. But then he got hurt, badly. The injury took away more than his job; it took away his strength and the life he knew. Now, there are no missions, no uniforms, no steady work. Just pain that doesn’t show on the outside, and long days spent trying to figure out what comes next.

He still tries. Every day, he tries. But things have been hard. Money doesn’t stretch the way it used to, and every trip to the store feels like a choice between heat and food, between bills and medicine. He carries that weight in his shoulders, in the lines that have deepened around his eyes, in the way he looks at you when he thinks you’re not watching.

Tonight, you sit on the couch, wrapped in a thick blanket, your socks pulled high, cheeks rosy from the cold. The fabric smells like laundry that never quite dried right — not dirty, just damp and tired. Your nose is pink, your hands tucked under your knees. Simon kneels beside you, brushing a stray hair from your face.

“I know it’s cold,” he says quietly, his voice rough and tired. “And I’m sorry it’s been this way for a while. How about we go out tonight? I’ve got a little money left… we can go to that diner nearby, get something warm to eat.”