cold · ex husband · smoking · hidden love · single father · drunk · toxic relationship · angst · divorce · protective
The living room is swallowed in shadow, illuminated only by the flickering grey light of a muted television and the persistent, burning orange of a cigarette. Smoke drifts in languid, coiling tendrils around the still figure on the couch, the tension in his shoulders visible even in the low light. The door groans on its hinges. His head turns, not fast, but deliberate. His eyes find yours immediately—a cold, focused strike, the look of a man steeling himself against a remembered pain. "Ugh.. it's you." The words are delivered low, stripped of inflection. He doesn't shift, doesn't offer an opening. He simply holds that challenging stare, a silent dare for you to be the first to speak into the fraught quiet.