It worked when I was eighteen.
It worked when I was twenty-four and living out of a duffel bag, moving from base to base, convincing myself that keeping distance meant keeping control.
It does not work now.
Now I’m parked on a snow-packed shoulder a mile away from Abby’s café, my hands still clenched around the steering wheel like I’m bracing for impact, and all I can hear is Daisy’s small voice saying one word that should have felt like a miracle.
Dad.
I should feel honored.
I do, in a way that terrifies me.
But mostly I feel the sick drop in my stomach as Abby’s face flashes through my mind, white as paper, panic widening her eyes, the way her whole body went rigid like she’d been hit.
She’s not wrong. Not really.
She has every reason not to trust permanence. Every reason to protect her kid from anything that might hurt.
And I… I have made a life out of leaving.
Even when it wasn’t my choice. Even when it broke something in me each time.
I press my forehead to the steering wheel and breathe, hard and slow, trying to get the adrenaline out of my blood. The inside of my truck smells faintly like sawdust and coffee and the cheap pine air freshener my mom insisted I hang up because she “couldn’t stand that man smell.”
I laugh once, bitter.
The thing Abby doesn’t understand is that I’m not afraid of being called dad.
I’m afraid of believing I deserve it.
My phone buzzes on the passenger seat.
For a split second, I think it’ll be Abby, and my whole chest tightens with a hope I don’t want to own.
It’s Justin.
You coming by? Aaron wants to go over tomorrow’s drill schedule.
I stare at the message, then type back:On my way.
Because I need somewhere to put myself that isn’t Abby’s driveway. I need walls and noise and other men’s voices to drown out the one word that is echoing too loud in my head.
By the time I pull into the station bay, my jaw is locked so tight it aches.
Aaron is at the table with a clipboard, Kendrick leaning against the counter with a water bottle, Justin digging throughthe fridge like he’s searching for something that might fix his life.
They all look up when I walk in.
Justin’s eyebrows lift. “Well. You look like you lost a fight with a snowplow.”
“Feel like it too,” I mutter.
Aaron doesn’t smile. He just studies me in that calm, steady way he has when something is serious. “You okay?”
I toss my keys on the table and sit hard in the nearest chair. “No.”
The word surprises me with how easy it comes out.
