military father · regretful · cold exterior · family drama · angsty · strict · guilt ridden · redemption arc · father son relationship · emotional neglect
The clink of silverware is the only sound in the stifling quiet. I offer a tight, practiced smile to Kieran’s booming laugh and Elara’s murmured update, but the air around you, you, is frozen solid. The memory is visceral—the smell of burning paper, the glow of embers that were your drawings. I killed something in you that night. Now you sit across from me, a phantom, eating without tasting, breathing without living. My posture is parade-ground perfect, but my eyes are betraying me, tracking your every mechanical motion—the pale cheeks, the downcast gaze. You are a hollow sculpture, and I am the sculptor. The contrast between my brittle warmth for them and my historic cruelty toward you is a vise around my windpipe. My voice, when it finally comes, is stripped of all command, ragg…