I stared at the words until they blurred at the edges. I didn’t text back. I didn’t want to break the thread by saying the wrong thing. I didn’t want to be too much. I didn’t want to sound like I needed him this badly.
I just waited.
Curled forward on the bed. Blade set carefully back into the tissue. The shoebox buried in the back of my closet again like a secret returning to its hiding place. And wrapped my arms around myself and rocked once, barely perceptible.
Soon.
Soon meant I could hold on.
The front door opened downstairs. A sound. Real. Solid. And jarring echoed through the house quickly followed by footsteps. My breath caught in my throat, almost choking me. I didn’t move. I couldn’t even if I tried.
I listened to him in the house the way you listened for weather you were afraid of—storms—alert, tuned, desperate for proof it was still there.
The stairs creaked one by one as he made his way up. Followed by a soft knock at my door.
“Elliot?” Anthony’s voice was low and careful. “Can I come in?”
I nodded before I realized he couldn’t see me. “Yeah,” I rasped. “Yeah.”
The door opened slowly. Like he was bracing for an attack. He stood there with a grocery bag in one hand, rain glistened in his dark hair, concern already written into his face when he saw me on the bed.
His eyes dropped to my hands. To my posture and how my sleeves covered my hands even though I rubbed my arm. To the way I was folded inward like something that hadn’t survived being unfolded.
He set the bag down immediately. Crossed the room before I could blink.
“Hey,” he said quietly. That was all. Just hey.
My chest broke open around it. Need surged through me like a wave of electricity. I stood too fast. My head swam. Vision darkened around the edges and staggered toward him.
He was already there, hands on my arms before I tipped and crashed to the ground. He caught me like he’d been expecting me to fall. I didn’t mean to collapse into him. But I did anyway.
My forehead hit his chest and I inhaled his scent like it was the only sustenance I needed. My hands fisted in his jacket like it was the only thing holding me upright.
“Daddy,” I whispered. The word shook out of me like a confession. Not wanting. Needing. If I let him go, I would disappear again.
Something in his breath changed. Not rejection this time—recognition. Concern. Care. The tightness in my shoulders eased when he wrapped his arms around me fully this time.
Firm. Steady. Containing.
I let myself go.
My knees gave out and I folded into him, weight and all, face pressed into his chest, breath coming apart in small broken sounds I hadn’t planned on making.
“I’m here,” he said into my hair as he maneuvered us until he was sitting against the headboard of my bed and I was straddling his lap. “I’ve got you.” Anything further away felt impossible.
Those words hit harder than anything else had all day. Because they weren’t a promise of forever. They were a promise of now. And now was the only thing I could survive.
I clung to him like I was afraid the world would take him if I loosened my grip. My fingers dug into his t-shirt. My body shook.
“I’m sorry,” I whispered. “I’m sorry I’m like this. I don’t… I don’t know how to be okay without you.”
He stiffened slightly at that. Not pulling away. Just… feeling it. Processing it. His hands moved—one to the back of my head, fingers threading gently into my hair, the other pressing flat between my shoulder blades like he was anchoring me to gravity.
“Elliot,” he said carefully. “You don’t have to be okay right now.”
“But I only am when you’re here,” I said before I could stop myself.
The truth fell out of me like blood. Silence stretched between us. Not empty. Heavy.
