I dropped out.
Dad fought me on it like he was fighting for my future with his bare hands. He told me to stay. Told me he’d be fine. Told me I’d regret it—the scholarship wouldn’t wait for me. But I couldn’t sit in a dorm room or go to class or run around a field while he was here alone, getting weaker by degrees.
So I came back. Back to the house with the sticking screen door. Back to the front walk crack. Back to the porch light. Back to being the only person he had, the only person he’d let close enough to see how bad it was getting.
I swallow, and my throat tightens like it’s trying to close.
The timing, at least, is a mercy. Classes just let out for the summer. Campus emptied out. The world slowed down the tiniest bit. And Maddy wasn’t due to go back home to her family ranch in Montana for another week, which meant she was still here—still close enough to drive down when I begged. Still close enough to sit with Dad when I couldn’t last night.
I stare at my front door.
I can’t stand here forever.
I shift my weight and the soreness in my body answers immediately, a dull reminder that moves through me like awarning. My face heats. My stomach twists. The backpack strap cuts into my shoulder, heavy with money I can’t explain.
Seventy thousand.
I take one step toward the walk. Then another.
And I don’t let myself think past that point.
The screen door sticks like it always does, catching on the swollen frame, and I have to shoulder it open with more force than I want to use this morning.
The smell hits me first.
Soup. Something warm and familiar, the kind of smell that belongs in this house even when everything else in my head is wrong.
I step inside and let the door thud shut behind me.
My backpack drags at my shoulder like a confession.
I keep it on for two more steps, as if I take it off too soon, I’ll fall apart, then I force my hands to move. The straps slide down my arms, and the bag lands on the floor of the entryway with a soft, heavy thump.
Too heavy.
My stomach flips.
I don’t look at it. I don’t let my eyes go there. I lock my attention on the kitchen.
Dad is at the stove.
Daniel Crawford stands in front of a pot like he’s always stood in front of a pot—shoulders squared, hair a little too long at the sides because he keeps saying he’ll get it cut, one hand on a wooden spoon.
He’s thinner.
That’s the first thought that cuts through me, sharp and unwanted. His T-shirt hangs looser than it should. His jeans sit differently at the waist. He’s moving like he’s trying not to show that it takes effort.
But he’s still here.
He’s upright.
He’s making food.
I cross the room fast.
“Dad,” I say, and my voice comes out too loud, too tight. “What are you doing?”
He glances over his shoulder, and his face shifts into something warm.
