My thumb hovers over the Send button for the forty-eighth time.
Then I delete it again.
Instead, I do what I’ve done every morning for the past month: open Instagram. Find Chloe’s personal profile. Stare at her latest post like it might give me answers.
I’m not following her anymore. I had to unfollow after the breakup, couldn’t handle seeing her face in my feed, smiling at events I wasn’t part of.
But I check her profile every day. Sometimes multiple times a day.
Like an addict.
Today’s post is from this morning. A photo of her sketchbook. A dragon with scales falling away, revealing something soft and vulnerable underneath. The caption:
@Chloe.D: Sometimes the armor has to come off.
I’ve stared at this post for twenty minutes. Tried to figure out if it means something. If she’s trying to tell me something.
Or if I’m just a desperate idiot, looking for signs that don’t exist.
The dragon. Just like the one in Barcelona. The day we met. When everything was possible and nothing was complicated.
Is she thinking about that night too?
Or has she moved on?
My phone buzzes.
Dad
Ready for pickup. Last day.
Right.
I pocket my phone, get out of the car, and trudge through the cold March morning toward the building that’s supposedly given my father his life back.
The Serenity Hills Treatment Center smells like industrial cleaner and hope.
I’m not sure which is more overwhelming.
The visitors’ lounge has uncomfortable chairs, motivational posters about “one day at a time,” and a coffee machine that dispenses something that’s technically coffee but tastes like regret.
My dad is waiting by the window, holding a small duffel bag—everything he came with plus some workbooks and a thirty-day chip.
He looks better than I’ve seen him in years.
Clearer eyes. Steadier hands. Actually present.
“Hey, son.” He walks over, and for a second I think he’s going to do the awkward shoulder-pat thing we usually do.
Instead, he hugs me, his arms enveloping me like I’m a kid again.
I’m so surprised, I almost don’t hug back.
“You ready?” I ask when we pull apart.
“Not yet.” He sets the bag down. “There are some things I need to say first. Walk with me?”
“Yeah. Sure.”
