"Nothing about that project was scientifically accurate. Pluto isn't even a planet anymore, and we included it anyway because Zoe said it deserved representation, anyway."
"She's not wrong."
Maya laughed, tired but real. She looked beautiful like this. Hair escaping from her ponytail, blue paint on her cheek, glitter on her fingers.
I reached across the table and brushed the paint from her cheek with my thumb, slow and careful. She went still. Her eyes met mine, and for a moment neither of us moved.
"Shane..."
"You had paint," I said. My voice came out rougher than I intended.
"Oh." She swallowed. "Thanks."
I pulled my hand back and tried to remember how to breathe.
Zoe's door opened. We both straightened like teenagers caught doing something we shouldn’t have.
She wandered back to the table, grabbed another slice of pizza, and dropped into her chair.
"There's a daddy-daughter dance next week," she said, not looking at either of us.
Her voice was too casual. Too careless. I recognized the tone. It was the voice of someone pretending something didn’t matter because it mattered too much to admit.
Maya's face tightened. "We can figure something out, honey. I could take you?—"
"It's fine." Zoe shrugged, picking at her pizza crust. "I don't even want to go. It's stupid anyway."
The words hung in the air. Heavy with everything she wasn't saying.
"Zoe—" Maya started.
"I'm tired." Zoe stood, leaving her half-eaten pizza on the table. "I'm going to bed. Thanks for dinner, Shane."
Her door closed behind her. Not a slam. Just a quiet click that somehow felt worse.
Maya stared at the closed door, her shoulders sagging.
"It's like this every year," she said quietly. "She pretends she doesn't care. And every year I watch her heart break a little more."
I didn't say anything. There was nothing to say.
But something clicked into place. A decision I didn't even know I'd been circling.
I knew exactly what I was going to do.
That night, I couldn't sleep.
I lay in my apartment, staring at the ceiling, thinking about Zoe's face when she said she didn't want to go. The careful blankness. The hurt tucked underneath.
I thought about Maya trying to be enough for both roles. Mother and father. Protector and provider. Everything, all the time, with no one to help carry the weight.
And then I thought about my own father.
Thirty years on the job. Commendations. Awards. Recognition. The kind of firefighter other firefighters told stories about.
But that's not what I remembered most.
I remembered him showing up. Every Little League game, even the ones where I struck out four times. Every school play, even the one where I forgot my lines and stood frozen on stage for thirty seconds. He'd work a twenty-four-hour shift, come home smelling like smoke, and still make it to my science fair with coffee in hand and pride in his eyes anyway.
