I can’t stop crying. And I don’t want to fall asleep—because I’m scared I'll dream about Daddy having a new family... and forgetting all about us.
Chapter 12
Next year, we’ll be happy again
Cecily
“Here.”
I smile faintly and take the mug from my father’s hands. “Thank you.”
The first sip burns a little—just like it used to when I was a kid, too impatient to wait for it to cool. It tastes exactly the same. Sweet, creamy, a little too rich. Comfort in liquid form.
“I’ve never had hot chocolate as good as yours,” I tell him, a small laugh escaping me. “I’ve tried to recreate your recipe a dozen times, but it’s never the same.”
Dad smiles, kisses my forehead, and sits beside me on the couch. Outside, it’s dead quiet. The trees are stripped bare, waiting for the snow.
“It’s the love of a father,” he says, drawing me into his arms. “You’ll always be my little girl. That’s why it always tastes the same.”
I rest my head against his shoulder, feeling the steady rhythm of his heart. He’s right. I’ll always be his little girl, theone who ran to him for everything, the one who believed his arms could fix the world.
I love my mom, I always have. But Dad and I... we’ve always shared a language of our own. Books, words, the easy comfort of just sitting in silence together. Maybe that’s why he sees me so clearly, even when I wish he didn't.
He built his career in academia, traveling across the country for lectures and conferences, always motivated more by his passion for teaching than for recognition. From time to time, former colleagues or students continue to reach out, just to catch up or ask for advice. He’s the kind of man people remember kindly, even after time and distance.
I went into Media, Culture, and Communication at NYU because of him, but also because it felt like the only way to make sense of the world. A way to translate the things people feel but never say out loud.
“Do you think he’ll come?” Dad asks, his hand warm on my shoulder.
I let out a breath I didn’t realize I was holding. “I hope so. Even if the kids don’t take it well. They need to see that at least he’s trying.”
Colin’s been calling every day since we got here, four days ago. He talks to me, sometimes to my parents, but not to them.
Ethan barely responds when I mention his name. Their relationship was already fragile before all of this, and now I don’t even know if it will ever change, or what I can do when he’s shut himself off so completely.
And Alicia. God. I’ve never seen her so subdued. My little girl, the one who used to fill every corner of a room with her soft laughter and easy joy. She manages a smile sometimes, but her eyes don’t lie. The light that used to live in them is gone, and I don’t know how to bring it back.
Watching the two of them drift away from him breaks me in ways I can’t fully explain.
Because for all the things Colin did, despite his growing absence over the years and how unbearable it became in these last few months, he was once a good father. And that’s the version of him our children miss.
He still loves them. I know he does. But watching that love turn into something they can’t trust anymore is its own kind of torture.
When I told Alicia that her dad and I weren’t getting back together, that he’d been with someone else, it felt like tearing something out of both of us.
She asked me if the stories he used to tell her were lies. The ones about fate. About how our names started with the same letter because destiny had chosen us. That he would love me forever.
I almost cried when she said it.
There wasn’t an answer that could make sense of it, so I told her the only truth I could. That what happened between her father and me doesn’t change how much he loves them. That no matter what, they will always be his children.
Every time he told her that story when she was little, he made it a little more magical. How our names starting with the same letter was destiny. A sign that we were meant to find each other. A taller staircase in the bookstore where I worked. A higher jump. A grander rescue.
And I would stand by her door, listening quietly, not wanting to interrupt their moment. Just grateful for the life we were building together.
“Honey?”
I blink, realizing Dad’s been talking. “Sorry. I was somewhere else.”
