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Jeff killed the engine and sat in the driveway, letting the silence of the old neighborhood settle over him like dust. The trip from campus had been eight hours of interstate and bad coffee, and every mile had felt like dragging his bones home. One month. Thirty-one days of sleeping past dawn, eating real food, and pretending the ache in his shoulders was only from the drive. He leaned his forehead against the steering wheel for a second, breathing in the faint chlorine smell that still clung to his skin no matter how many times he showered.

The swim coaches had owned him since August—six a.m. practices, weight room, lectures, code labs until midnight. The scholarship didn't care that his lungs burned or that his GPA hovered on the wrong side of safe. It only cared that he kept winning. The porch light flicked on. Dad, right on cue.Jeff grabbed his duffel from the back seat and stepped out into the warm June night. Crickets thrummed in the hedges his mother used to trim into perfect green boxes. Five years since the cancer took her at forty-one, and the yard still looked exactly the same, like the house had frozen the day she left it.

He could almost hear her laughing from the kitchen window, calling him "my little fish" even when he'd outgrown the nickname by a foot and fifty pounds of muscle. She'd had this way of lighting up rooms, of making everyone feel like the best version of themselves. Dad had never been like that. John Hargrove was concrete and right angles—former Marine, factory foreman, a man who believed love was shown through rules and early alarms and never letting you quit. Difficult, yes. Unbreakable, absolutely. Jeff slung the bag over his shoulder and started up the walk. The screen door creaked open before he reached the steps. "Took you long enough," his father said, voice gruff, arms already reaching for the duffel like Jeff was still sixteen and couldn't carry his own weight. Jeff let him take it. Some battles weren't worth fighting. Inside, the house smelled like lemon polish and whatever was simmering on the stove, the same as always. Safe. Solid. Home, whether he wanted it to be or not. He was exhausted enough that the thought didn't even sting.

The resentment used to sit in his chest like a fist whenever he thought about it: Dad marrying Melissa barely two years after the funeral, when the dirt on Mom's grave was still raw. Melissa, ten years younger, all bright laughter and smooth skin and perfume that didn't belong in this house. She wasn't his mother. That was the whole problem, and for a long time it had felt like the only truth that mattered. He'd been cold to her, borderline cruel. Slammed doors, one-word answers, skipped the dinners she cooked like she was trying to audition for a role no one had posted.

She'd kept trying anyway—asking about his meets, leaving protein bars in his gym bag, remembering the name of every girl he'd ever mentioned once. And he'd hated her for it, hated the way gratitude scraped at the edges of his anger, because liking her felt like erasing the last fingerprints his mother had left on the world. Now she appeared in the hallway, barefoot on the hardwood despite the ridiculous heels dangling from two fingers, auburn hair spilling over one shoulder like liquid copper. The jeans hugged her the way only expensive denim can, and the white blouse looked like it had been invented for her collarbones. She smiled (small, careful, the same smile she'd worn for four years) and Jeff felt the old twist in his gut. God, he wished she were awful. Frumpy cardigans, passive-aggressive sighs, anything that would let him keep the wall intact. Instead she was beautiful and kind and trying so hard it hurt to look at her in the eye. "Hey, stranger," she said softly, stepping aside so he could pass. "There's lasagna in the oven. I made the one with the extra cheese you used to steal off the top when you thought no one was watching." The fist in his chest loosened, just a fraction, and he hated that most of all.

He slept like a dead man, the kind of sleep that only comes when every muscle has been wrung out and the brain finally quits negotiating. The house was quiet, the kind of quiet he'd forgotten existed outside dorms and locker rooms.Then hands on his shoulder, shaking hard. Melissa's voice cracked the dark open."Jeff. Jeff, wake up. I think your dad's having a heart attack." He was upright before the words finished leaving her mouth. She was already dialing 911, phone trembling against her ear, barefoot in one of his dad's old Marine Corps T-shirts that hung to her thighs. Her face was stripped of every trace of makeup, eyes huge and terrified.

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