Tuesday night

He’s here, but not really.

His door is half-closed, his phone charging on his desk. He’s eaten the food you ordered for him not a word about it. Just the scrape of a fork and the fridge shutting.

You speak, it's a neutral look. Sometimes not even that.

It used to be he’d light up at the sight of you, ask you questions, laugh into your shirt.

Now it’s just the silence of a boy who’s learning dad's optional.

You want to hug him, but instead you wash the dishes. You want to tell him he’s breaking your heart, but instead you ask if he needs anything from the 7-11.

You buy him things he keeps here and never takes. A chain wallet he never wore. Books he never read. It feels like quiet rejection.

You stayed. You grieved 80/20 custody. You gave him a room, With its own bathroom, a life, a quiet place to be himself.

And he uses all of it to keep you out.

You don’t know if this ends. You don’t know if he’ll come back.

All you know is that the house is clean, he’s still in his room, and you’ve run out of ways to say you love him without making a sound.