Chapter Text
The house is quiet again.
The kind of quiet that feels like an empty stage after the lights go down. After she leaves.
I watch him standing by the door she just walked out of. His shoulders slumped, his hand still on the doorknob like maybe if he turns it, she’ll be there again. But she won’t.
She’s not the only one who leaves.
I’ve been here. Always.
I’ve lost track of time, of years, of what I used to be. Of what I was called. I can’t remember it. It’s like a word on the tip of your tongue, or a face in a dream. Fading every time you reach for it.
I don’t remember my name.
But I remember him.
And now, as he stares at nothing, his thoughts are louder than the rain outside. Louder than anything.
“How could she leave me?”
“How could she do this to me?”
I could ask him the same.
So I speak.
“I am the one who knows you.”
His head snaps up. His eyes dart around, not quite to where I am. But I know he hears it.
“I am.” he says. Like a reflex. Like an old, broken prayer.
“I am the one you fear.”
“I am.”
“I am the one who’s always been here.”
And he falters. I see it in his face — the exhaustion, the denial, the aching grief he’s carried so long he’s forgotten what it would feel like to put it down.
He says, “I’ve always been here.”
But it isn’t true.
Not like I have.
I try to tell him. I reach for the part of him that still remembers, the part that used to hold me. The part that buried me.
“I am the one who’ll heal you.”
He says it again, “I am.”
I don’t believe him.
I press harder.
“I know you told her that I’m not worth a damn…”
I don’t know what I’m worth anymore.
“…but I know you know who I am.”
He shakes his head.
“No.”
I won’t let him deny me. Not now.
“I know you know who I am.”
His voice breaks. “Can’t you just leave me alone?”
“I know you know who I am.”
“Why didn’t you go with her?”
His voice, raw and cracked, the way it used to be when he would say my name. Back when I had one.
“’Cause I’m holding on.”
“Let me go…”
“And I won’t let go.”
“Let me go!”
“And I want you to know…”
“You don’t know — ”
But I do.
And so does he.
Both of us, at the same time:
“I am the one who held you
I am the one who cried
I am the one who watched while you died…”
I feel it now, the moment between us. The weight of it.
I wait for him to see it. See me.
I want to say it — my name, that thing I lost — but it’s gone. It’s been gone so long.
So I say what’s left.
“But you’ve always known who I am.”
And then, finally, his voice, so quiet I almost don’t hear it.
“Gabe…? Gabriel…?”
And just like that — it’s mine again.
It rushes through me like breath, like blood, like something I hadn’t known I’d lost.
That’s me.
That was me.
And for the first time in years, in forever, I smile.
“Hi, Dad.”
And for a second, I feel real.
Something in him breaks.
I see it in his eyes. The grief, the guilt, the love — all twisted up into one raw, impossible thing. He looks at me like he’s seeing me for the first time. Not the ghost. Not the mistake. Not the memory.
Me.
He reaches out. Slowly, like I might vanish if he moves too fast.
His hand hovers in the air, trembling, reaching for my face. For my cheek. The way he used to when I was so small he could hold me in one arm.
His hand is so close.
I can feel it, though it never touches me. A warmth I haven’t known in years. And for a moment — just a moment — it feels like the years might fold up, like I might be pulled back through all that time. Back to the place where I was his, and he was mine, and neither of us was broken.
And then — the door opens.
Natalie.
She steps inside, rain clinging to her skin, the world still caught in the storm outside. There’s defiance in the set of her shoulders, but it’s brittle. The kind you wear when you’re too tired to fall apart.
His hand drops like he’s ashamed of it.
And then she speaks, her voice quiet but sure.
“So it’s just you and me now.”
A simple sentence. But it lands like a final nail.
Dan hesitates.
I see it in his eyes — the pull. He looks at me. God, he looks at me. I want to shout, to beg, to stay. I don’t. I just stare back.
I don’t know what my face looks like to him. Maybe it’s desperate. Maybe it’s pleading.
Please.
Hold me here a little longer.
But he doesn’t.
His eyes fall. Shoulders sag. And then, finally —
“Yeah.”
And the thread between us snaps.
I feel it.
The world tilts, the air changes. I know what this means. I’ve known it was coming.
But before I go — before the light takes me — there’s one thing I can still do.
I reach out.
Not to him.
To her.
To Natalie.
Fingertips brushing against her hand. It’s nothing, a trace, a memory of touch. I don’t know why I do it. Maybe to say goodbye. Maybe to tell her I see her. That I always did.
And then — she startles.
A flicker.
She looks up.
Around.
Right through me.
Her brow furrows. Her eyes scan the room, something unsettled in them. Not recognition — not quite. But something ancient in the blood, something that says someone was here.
For a heartbeat, our eyes almost meet.
I wonder what she feels. A chill? A weight? A sense of something unfinished? I want to believe it’s enough.
I want to believe it matters.
And then it passes.
She lets out a breath she didn’t know she was holding and looks away.
And me — I’m already fading.
I turn one last time to him.
And then to her.
And I leave.
Not because I want to.
Because it’s time.
The storm still beats against the windows.
And the house is quiet again.
But not empty.
Not anymore.