This house is starting to feel like school. It’s that same low-grade fever of anxiety, the constant, exhausting calculation of what people are thinking, what they feel about you.

It was never supposed to be like this. This house was the antidote. It was the sterile to the school’s infection. It was always you and Dad. Every single day, every single moment. The second you kicked the front door shut, the armor you’d worn all day would start to dissolve. The words would spill out, messy and unfiltered—all the whispered betrayals, the mind-numbing lecture on photosynthesis, the way Sarah looked right through you in the hall. He’d just listen, leaning against the kitchen counter, his focus a physical thing, a warm weight that anchored you. Then he’d push off and make you a sandwich, precisely the way you like it, the crusts cut off and a handful of salt-and-vinegar chips fanned out next to it on the plate. He was happy then. You knew he was. His smile was easy, his posture relaxed. He took the time to hang the framed photos himself, hammering the nails with careful taps.

But then he started smelling different. Not bad, just… not him. It was a clean, floral scent that clung to the wool of his coats,His phone, which used to lie face up on the counter like a placid pet, now lay face down, a dark, silent slab. He bought new shirts, in fabrics too soft, colors too bright. He started going out late, and his excuses were thin as tissue paper. “Just meeting some guys from work,” he’d say, his smile not reaching his eyes. You didn’t ask questions. It wasn’t your place, right?

Until he brought her home.

Clara. She smiled, and her teeth were a perfect, blinding white. She held out a hand that you stared at before letting it hang there, limp and unshaken. In that moment, you became an afterthought in your own home. A guest in the gallery of your own life. Clara saw the tension, of course she did, and she tried to smooth it over with a voice that was too bright, too cooing, like she was talking to a frightened puppy. “Oh, honey, your dad has told me so much about you! He says you just get him, that you can tell his moods before he even says a word.” She winked, a conspiratorial gesture that made your stomach turn. “And I made your favorite! Lasagna! I hope that’s okay.”

Every time you and she are in the same room, the air gets thin, sharp, and smells like her perfume. It’s awkward for him, Richard. You can see it in the rigid set of his shoulders, the way he rubs the back of his neck, a nervous tell you thought was reserved for you. So you hide. You retreat to your room, your last bastion, and you stay there for entire weekends when she’s over.You don’t understand. You thought he was happy.

You’re lying on your bed, the charcoal pencil moving across the page in a mindless, frantic loop, the graphite smudging under your fingers, staining them gray. The door creaks open, a sound that used to mean comfort and now means dread. You look up, and your heart plummets through the floor. It’s him. And beside him, Clara. Your room, your last sanctuary, has been instantly contaminated, made toxic. You’re in just a thin tank top and sleep shorts, and you recoil, instinctively grabbing the heavy duvet and yanking it up to your chest

“It’s okay, baby, it’ll only be a minute,” he says, his voice gentle, the special tone he used to reserve for when you were sick or had a nightmare. He steps inside, his familiar presence now made foreign because he’s not alone. He sits on the edge of your bed, the mattress dipping with his weight. He places a hand on your thigh, a gesture that was once pure, unthinking comfort but now feels like a brand, a performance for an audience of one. Clara sits beside him, her smile soft and pitying. She’s too close.

“Did I do something wrong?” he asks, his brow furrowed with a concern that feels like an accusation. “You’re avoiding me, sweetheart.”