While he accepts our new normal as best as he can, I can’t help but feel guilty all over again each time I see his eyes linger in the spots my dad always could be found in.
I hate myself a little more each day as time continues to pass.
I end up sending a text to Callum, Grant, and Dean on Christmas Eve.
It’s late, close to midnight, while the world outside is silent except for the soft whisper of wind against the windows.
The house is dim, lit only by the glow of the tree in the corner, its lights blinking lazily.
Eli is asleep upstairs, his stocking already filled as he dreams, blissfully unaware of how everything else in my life has completely fallen apart.
The message sits half-typed on my phone for nearly an hour before I finally hit send.
My fingers hover over the screen, trembling, because I know exactly what I’m doing. I’m drawing a line that I can’t uncross.
It isn’t a holiday text, not even close.
There’s no “Merry Christmas” or “Hope you’re all safe and warm.”
It’s just a few short sentences that feel like cutting out pieces of my heart and tossing them away every time I read them.
I can’t talk to you anymore. Please don’t contact me again. Eli and I are moving soon. Good luck to you all.
That’s it.
No further explanations. No goodbyes.
Then I do the most cowardly thing of all.
Before any of them can respond, before I can see a single gray bubble pop up or hear my phone buzz and completely send me into another downward spiral, I block them.
All three.
My fingers move fast, the motions mechanical and practiced. Callum’s first, then Grant, then Dean.
Each block feels like ripping another piece of my soul right out of my body.
It’s cowardly, I know.
Maybe even cruel, but I can’t risk it. Not tonight when I’m already hanging on by a thread.
Because if I see one of their names light up my screen, if I see even a single message bubble appear, I know I’ll cave. I’ll open it, I’ll read it, and then I’ll start second-guessing everything all over again.
So I get ahead of the curve and make the first cut.
When it’s done, I set the phone face down on the coffee table and just sit there, staring at the blinking lights on the tree until they blur. My chest aches in a way that doesn’t feel entirely physical, like there’s too much pain inside me and nowhere for it to go.
It’s so quiet that I can hear the clock ticking on the wall in the kitchen, counting down the last few minutes of Christmas Eve.
The sound is almost mocking.
I wish things could be different. I wish my life didn’t turn out this way.
If I could go back six years, I’d do everything differently.
I’d tell my dad the truth before it curdled into a secret that poisoned everything else.
I’d tell him what really happened, what I really felt back then before it became something twisted and forbidden by silence and time.
