The Child Between Us

That damn swing.
That damn park.
And my damn mouth

Why did our paths ever have to collide?

The scream tears out of me before I realise it’s mine.

It isn’t cinematic. There’s no dramatic pause, no meaningful silence. It’s raw and animal and wrong, the kind of sound that doesn’t ask for comfort because it already knows there won’t be any.

The house throws it back at me. Walls. Ceilings. Corridors conspiring to make sure there’s nowhere for it to go.

I slide down onto the kitchen floor, my back hitting the cabinets hard enough to knock the breath from my lungs. My hands are shaking so violently I must pin them to my thighs just to stop them flailing uselessly.

I don’t look at him.
Not yet.

The noise finally stops, leaving behind something worse… a silence so heavy it presses against my ears until they ring.

This isn’t like the movies.
There’s no clarity. No slow, dawning realisation.
Just shock. Heavy, thick, and paralysing.
When I finally lift my eyes, he’s exactly where he fell.

Still.
Too still.

Will has always taken up space without trying. Tall, naturally so, the kind of height that made people straighten when he entered a room. His head is full of hair, threaded with grey, he never bothered to hide. Even now, it’s neat, as if he’s only just stepped out of a meeting. He always looked professional, always. Even on days off, when other men softened, he stayed sharp. A shirt, sleeves rolled just enough to suggest ease. Jeans that never looked worn. Effortless restraint.

His facial hair is trimmed, groomed, also greying. I used to tease him about it, call it distinguished. He would smile in that quiet way of his, confident without arrogance. His eyes, never blue, never green. Silver. That strange in-between that caught light and held it, reflective and cold all at once.

His Adam’s apple is prominent, frozen mid swallow, his throat locked in a moment that will never finish. His body lies wrong against the marble, but his posture still carries that familiar strength. Even collapsed, he looks composed. Grounded. Like he might stand at any second and brush himself off.

But he doesn’t.
I wait for his chest to rise. It doesn’t.
I wait for his fingers to twitch. They don’t.

And somewhere, deep beneath the shock, beneath the ringing silence and the shaking in my bones, something inside me understands that the man who once filled rooms with his presence has finally, irrevocably, left one empty.

My stomach lurches. I swallow hard and force air into my lungs. In. Out. Again.
“Breathe,” I whisper. “You don’t get to fall apart yet.” I glance at the clock.

10:07 a.m.

Five hours.

That’s how long I have, I must make this world look normal again. Five hours to ensure I’m standing at the school gates at 03:15 p.m., smiling as if nothing irreversible has happened inside this house.

I can’t think about Flick yet. I can’t afford to. That comes later.

I stand on legs that don’t feel like mine and move through the kitchen on autopilot. I avoid looking down. Avoid letting memory catch up with me.

Before I begin, I pick up his phone.
My hands don’t shake this time.

MESSAGE SENT: 10:29 a.m.

Where are you? I thought you were stopping by for brunch before your meeting.

Delivered.

I place the phone back carefully, exactly where it was.

Sentiment is dangerous.