Quiet. Complicated. Still there.
I stared at the bouquet again, and suddenly, I didn’t know whether to cry or laugh. Because I realized something. This wasn’t painful the way it used to be. It was bittersweet. The ache wasn’t from betrayal anymore, or from the version of us that could’ve been. It had taken on a different shape now, something quieter, something I could finally hold without breaking.
I set the bracelet box down carefully, like it was something fragile. Then I glanced toward the couch, watching Haille—proof that something between us had once been real—sleep soundly, completely safe.
I whispered, barely audible in the quiet house, “Happy birthday to me.”
It didn’t sound like celebration. It sounded like survival, and maybe it was the first kind of celebration I had earned.
Because for the first time, the thought of him didn’t feel like something I had to run from.
And I meant it.
—?—
The laptop screen glowed softly on the kitchen table, casting a pale rectangle of light across the quiet room. The kind of quiet that only happened after seven, after dinner had been cleaned up, counters wiped, toys shoved into their designated corners, and the day finally stopped demanding things from me.
My laptop was already set up for the video call.
At this point, I didn’t even need to check the clock anymore. My body knew the schedule the way it knew how to lock the doors before bed, or how to find baby wipes with my eyes half-closed.
Haille sat in her chair with her feet swinging under her, cheeks still flushed from her bath, hair damp and smelling like strawberry shampoo. She leaned closer to the screen like it was a window she could climb through.
“Daddy will call now,” she announced solemnly, like she was the one with responsibilities and a very strict calendar.
“I know,” I said, adjusting the laptop angle without looking at her. “You’ve said it six times.”
“Because Daddy misses me,” she said proudly, chin lifted like she’d personally solved the problem of long-distance parenting.
Before I could respond, the ringtone chimed.
Haille gasped dramatically, both hands flying to her mouth like she couldn’t believe her prediction had come true, then slapped the answer button so enthusiastically I almost worried she’d crack the touchpad.
The call connected.
And there he was.
Adrian’s face filled the screen. His hair slightly damp, a plain T-shirt clinging to his shoulders, dark eyes already awake in that unmistakable way that made it obvious he’d been up before the city around him. The background behind him wasunfamiliar but consistent: hotel room lighting, bland walls, the faint outline of a desk lamp.
But the look on his face wasn’t bland at all.
The moment he saw Haille, something in his expression loosened like it always did.
“Hey, bug,” he murmured, voice low and warm. “There you are.”
Haille practically climbed onto the keyboard. “DADDYYYYY!”
I caught her before she could shove her entire face into the screen and pulled her back into her chair, already used to the routine, already knowing that video calls were less like conversations and more like controlled chaos.
“You’re going to knock it over,” I said dryly.
Haille ignored me completely, eyes locked onto the screen like the world was only him.
“Daddy, I took bath,” she announced.
Adrian’s mouth curved. “Yeah? You smell good from here.”
I snorted quietly into my mug.
