Made me laugh like I hadn’t in years.
Made me feelwanted—not for what I did, or what I could provide, but just... me.
And yet even standing in her kitchen, listening to her talk about that dreamy, chaotic, perfectly imperfect life, I couldn’t see myself inside it without breaking something.
Because what if I tried?
What if I came in with all my broken pieces, all my hesitation, all my long-haul emotional damage, and it was too much?
What if I disappointed her?
What if I left a kid standing at the front door with a packed lunch and a note from the school reminding me about a science fair I’d forgotten?
What if I becamehim?
My father’s voice crept in—low, slurred, full of regret disguised as cruelty.
“You’ll never be the guy who gets it right, Ben. Too damn careful. Too quiet.”
I sucked in a sharp breath and shook it off.
No. I wasn’t him.
But I wasn’t sure I was the man Fifi needed either.
Because she deserved someone who ran toward that dream, not someone who needed a five-point checklist and thirty therapy sessions to believe he could be part of it.
I crouched by the tree line, picked up a stone, and tossed it down the incline, watching it bounce through brush and disappear.
My phone buzzed.
A text from my brother.
Still breathing?
I stared at the words.
Fifi was giving me every reason to stay.
But everything in me was still wired to run.
And the worst part?
I didn’t want to.
I wanted to earn the dream she dared to say out loud.
I just wasn’t sure how.
I didn’t have the energy for a real phone call.
Not after standing in the woods trying to peel open my fears like some emotional puzzle box with no clear solution. Not after hearing Fifi describe her dreams with the kind of warmth and clarity that made my chest tighten in ways I didn’t want to admit.
But I still opened the messaging thread with Dustin.
Still alive.
Dustin wrote back.
