THE FLUORESCENT lights in Dr. Walsh's office hummed with that particular frequency that made Auden's teeth ache, casting everything in the sickly pallor of hospital corridors. The room felt smaller than she remembered — beige walls closing in like cupped palms, the motivational posters about heart health and diabetes prevention faded to the color of old tea stains. Even the fake plant in the corner seemed to wilt under the artificial brightness, its plastic leaves gathering dust.

She had booked this appointment three days ago, fingers trembling as she dialed the number after Cillian had noticed her hands shaking, again, as she got ready for work one morning.

"Is your anxiety acting up again?" he'd asked, watching her fumble with a hair tie. The scrunchie slipped, falling onto the carpet with a soft thud that seemed to echo her failure at the simplest tasks.

He'd bent to retrieve it, his unbuttoned shirt revealing the slope of his shoulder in the morning light. When he pressed the elastic into her palm, his fingertips felt cold.

"No," she'd lied.

He didn't press. He never did anymore. But the way his eyes lingered on her trembling hands left her unsettled for hours afterward. It was one thing to manage her unraveling in private; another entirely to have it witnessed, catalogued, filed away for future reference.

Now she sat rigid in the vinyl chair that exhaled small sighs with every movement, her hands folded tightly in her lap to hide the tremor that had become her constant companion. Dr. Walsh's voice seemed to drift toward her through thick glass as he flipped through her lab results, the pages making soft whispers of judgment.

Dr. Walsh was a soft man in the way that middle age had rounded his edges — shoulders sloped from years of hunching over charts, belly straining against his pale blue shirt like a question mark. His hair had retreated to a gray horseshoe around his skull, and his hands moved with the economy of someone who had learned to waste neither motion nor words. When he spoke, his voice carried the measured cadence of decades spent translating medical terminology into language that wouldn't send patients fleeing.

"Your iron levels are quite low," he noted, adjusting his wire framed glasses. "And you're deficient in several vitamins — B12, D, folate. When did you last have a proper meal?"

Auden tried to remember. Yesterday? The day before? Time had become fluid lately, measured only in the fulfillment of Catherine's needs and the crossing of items off lists. Besides, she was trying to lose weight anyway.

"I eat," she said finally.

Dr. Walsh set down the papers, and leaned forward, his expression shifting from clinical detachment to the sort of passive concern that doctors learned in medical school — genuine enough, but contained within professional boundaries of duty. "You've lost almost ten pounds since I saw you last spring."

"Baby weight," Auden offered with a shrug.

"It's been six years."

She met his gaze directly, her jaw tightening. "I'm aware of my daughter's age, Dr. Walsh."

The silence stretched between them like a taut wire, filled only by the relentless buzzing of fluorescent bulbs and the distant murmur of voices in the hallway.

Dr. Walsh cleared his throat and leaned back in his chair, the leather creaking a small protest as he crossed one stout leg over the other. When he peered back over his glasses, which had slid down the bridge of his nose like a confession of his age, Auden recognized the look — it was the same one she gave Catherine when she had been caught fibbing about finishing her homework or sneaking Beans pieces of chicken under the table.

He's treating me like a child, she thought, anger flaring briefly before dissolving back into numbness.

"Let me explain this delicately," he began. "Auden, these tremors you're experiencing — they're not uncommon in cases of severe stress and anxiety. What's going on at home?"

Auden felt nothing. Not the familiar sensation of drowning, not panic, not even irritation. Just a vast, gray emptiness where her emotions used to live, like looking into a well that had run dry.

"Nothing," she said, the word coming out flat and automatic.

But Dr. Walsh had been her physician for seven years. He'd delivered Catherine, had seen her through postpartum depression, had watched her rebuild herself into someone she barely recognized. His gaze wasn't judgmental, but it wasn't warm either — it was just facts wrapped in the thin veneer of bedside manner.

"The blood work suggests chronic stress," he continued when she didn't elaborate. "Your cortisol levels are elevated, and combined with the nutritional deficiencies, the weight loss, the tremors you mentioned..." He paused, giving her a chance to fill the silence.

But she didn't. Auden stared at a spot just over his shoulder, at a diploma she'd read a dozen times before. "I'm fine."

His sigh was audible, frustrated. If she was fine, she wouldn't have come here. They both knew that.

"Are you sleeping?"

"When I can."

"And your marriage?" He questioned, head tilting slightly to the side. "Your work situation?"

The questions felt like tiny pinpricks against her paralysis, barely registering. "Everything's fine."

Dr. Walsh glanced at his watch with pursed lips. I'm wasting his time, Auden thought, as he made a note in her file, the pen scratching against paper like fingernails on glass, each stroke loud in the antiseptic quiet.

"Okay, I'm going to prescribe a low-dose anti-anxiety medication to help with the tremors. It's the same one you were on before you got pregnant." Dr. Walsh tore the prescription from his pad before handing it to her. She studied the sprawling, illegible scrawl. "But this is just a short-term prescription, while you address the underlying stressors."

Her fingers tightened around the parchment, eyes returning to Dr. Walsh's. She noticed the slight gleam of sweat gathering across his upper lip. "I don't need medication."

"Your body is telling a different story."

"My body just needs more vitamins, apparently." She did little to hide the bitterness in her tone. "You said so yourself."

Dr. Walsh remained unmoved by her hostility

"The vitamins are a symptom, not the cause." Dr. Walsh's voice carried the patient authority of someone accustomed to resistant patients. "When we don't take care of ourselves — when we're under sustained pressure — our bodies begin to break down. What you're experiencing is your system's way of waving a white flag."

She wanted to argue, to insist she was managing perfectly well, that the tremors would stop once she caught up on sleep or cut out caffeine. Cillian will be home for three months, she could say. He'll help. I can focus on being healthier.

But then she remembered how he hadn't pressed her about the lie, how he'd simply accepted her deflection and moved on, as if he no longer had the energy to call her out. Five years ago, he would have been relentless. Now — nothing.

"Fine," she said instead, the word coming out sharper than she intended. "Prescribe whatever you think will help."

Dr. Walsh studied her for a long moment, then reached into his desk drawer. "I'm also going to give you a referral. Someone I think could help you work through some of this."

Auden took the card he extended without looking at it, slipping it immediately into her purse. "A therapist."

"A very good one. She specializes in couples counseling, but she also works with individuals navigating... difficult transitions."

"Wonderful," Auden muttered sarcastically. "All my problems are solved."

The card felt like a burning accusation in her bag as she gathered her things, the feeling of its edges still faint against her fingertips. Dr. Walsh was already moving on, making notes about follow-up appointments and lab work, his concern already shifting to the next patient, the next set of symptoms to diagnose and treat like items on a grocery list.

"I'll see you in a month or so," Dr. Walsh told her as he stood, the wheels from his chair spinning backward against the cold tile. "Hopefully, with improved blood work."

At the door, Auden turned back, but his attention was elsewhere, fixed on her file which was still opened on the counter. "The medication — how long before it starts working?"

"Two to three weeks for full effect. But Auden?" He looked up from his notes. "The pills won't fix what's causing this. They'll just make it easier to function while you do the real work."

She left without saying thank you.

Twenty minutes later, she found herself standing in the parking lot outside a convenience store with prescription bottles nestled in a brown paper bag in the passenger seat of her car. Outside, the afternoon sun felt too bright, the autumn wind too unforgiving. She found herself holding her elbows, suppressing a shiver that threatened to escape. Without thinking, she crossed the lot and pushed through the glass doors.

Inside, it smelled of stale coffee and artificial cherry. She moved through the aisles like a sleepwalker until she found herself at the counter. Her gaze lifted to the cigarette display, a wall of familiar soldiers: American Spirits, Camel, Newport. But her eyes settled on gold and white, on memory made tangible.

"Pack of Marlboro Lights," she heard herself say. Her fingers found a pink lighter from the plastic stand, its cheerful color almost an obscene choice, given her mood. "And this."

The teenage cashier didn't look up from his phone. "ID?"

Auden fumbled for her wallet, before she handed over her license. Thirty-six years old and buying cigarettes like contraband.

The boy's fingers paused over her identification, then his gaze sharpened, studying her face with sudden recognition flickering in his eyes. "Do I know you from somewhere?"

Auden blinked. "No."

His stare lingered, probing — that familiar moment when someone stood on the precipice of connecting her face to her husband's name, to the life she wore like an ill-fitting costume. Her pulse hammered against her throat.

"Mmph." He returned her license with fading interest, already turning away. Relief flooded her muscles, leaving her momentarily boneless.

Back outside, she sat on the hood of her Audi, the metal warm against her thighs. She stared at the cellophane wrapper, remembering the last time she'd held a pack like this. It had been the night before she told Cillian she was pregnant. She'd thrown away a nearly full pack, promising herself and the cluster of cells growing inside her that she was done with this particular form of self-destruction.

The cellophane crinkled as she tore it away, joining the detritus of her purse. The box felt familiar against her palm, even after so long, as she tapped it, shaking a few cigarettes loose. Her finger pinched one, nestled right in the middle, and pulled it free.

The tip of the smoke was spongy and dry. The pink lighter blazed bright as a warning flare against the monochrome landscape of her existence. Perhaps her subconscious craved this splash of color, this small rebellion against the gray that had settled over everything like dust.

Auden inhaled harshly. Instantly, the smoke burned her throat, long healed from this sort of exposure. She coughed harshly, her head swimming with the rush of nicotine flooding her bloodstream, that familiar tingle spreading from her toes upward, through her abdomen, down to her fingertips like electricity finding ground.

Another drag, this one smoother. The end burned, embers of red and orange as smoke trailed in a single, wavy line into the sky. Auden took a peek at her watch. She would have to pick up Catherine from school soon, and head to Charlie's football match. The ordinary demands of motherhood, tethering her to earth.

From the depths of her purse, she retrieved the business card, already dulled with crumbs and lint.

Cigarette dangling from her lips, she swiped away the dirt. It was a simple, humble business card with pressed black lettering.

Maeve Bergman, M.D., it read. Marriage and Family Support.

Therapy wasn't new to her, but she hadn't gone since she was three months pregnant.

Auden believed her new life had been a reward for her penance. Compensation from being stripped bare, humiliated, broken and bruised. For putting her ego aside, her arrogance bitten back. Cillian had left her, rightfully so. Therapy had been the only answer then.

She'd done the work. Proven, with stubborn determination, that she could breathe without screaming, greet without wanting to flee, exist alone without courting death. She'd excavated her damage and held each piece up to the light.

But Cillian had kept returning, inserting himself into her healing like a splinter. Convenience was his oldest companion, and they'd danced their familiar pattern — forward and back, round and round — with only Auden growing dizzy from self-awareness.

So she'd refused him. Refused to fall prey to the old choreography where he provoked her unraveling just to play savior afterward, collecting her pieces like trophies.

She'd done what he'd asked of her — the healing, the growth, the transformation. But when she'd demanded the same in return, he'd weaponized her refusal, used time and distance like chess pieces. She understood that now. Just as she'd found her footing, he'd returned as if he'd never left, bombing her equilibrium with confessions, career changes, and the one offer she'd never dared imagine possible.

Through it all, Cillian had remained unchanged. Because it had always been easier to blame her damage — her unchecked anxiety, her emotional distance, her unresolved grief from losing her father — than to examine his own reflection.

But now she saw clearly through the smoke: she was no longer the woman she used to be. The fault lines had shifted. The blame had found its true home.

Her husband was broken, because she let him stay that way.

Auden flicked the cigarette butt to the pavement, Dr. Bergman's card disappearing back into her bag. Her thumb scrolled past Cillian's name, past her father's disconnected number, past work colleagues and Catherine's teachers. Each name a blur until she reached the one she'd been avoiding for weeks.

Her mother answered on the third ring.

"Hello darling," Emma greeted, "Is everything alright?"

Even now, Emma's voice carried that rasp — the ghost of decades Auden remembered in fragments. A laugh from another room, a lullaby hummed while cooking, all gone before her third birthday.

"I'm fine." Auden placed another smoke between her lips. She cupped the flame from the lighter against the wind. Inhaled once, before releasing and letting the truth fall from her, as painful as it was. "Just wanted to hear your voice."

A pause stretched between them. Television laughter crackled through the receiver, some daytime show bleeding into their conversation. Early morning in Wisconsin, half a world away.

"Well, this is a pleasant surprise." The background noise dimmed. Emma settled somewhere, probably the couch, coffee in one hand. "I was just thinking about calling you. Aiden broke off his engagement."

"What?" Smoke escaped with the word. "When?"

"Last week. Sarah wanted to move the wedding up, and he got cold feet. You know how he is." Emma's laugh held no warmth. "Takes after his mother, I suppose."

Despite everything, Auden almost smiled. Her half-brother, perpetually skittish about commitment, had been engaged for two years. Sarah possessed infinite patience.

"How's he handling it?"

"He's convinced he saved them both from disaster. But Sarah's posting cryptic song lyrics on Facebook while their friends choose sides." Emma told her this with a hint of exhaustion. Her youngest son, Auden had realized, was often the biggest thorn in her side. She spoke of him often with the same underlying disappointment, whenever Auden asked about him.

"They're young." She reassured, " Give him time."

"I've given that boy twenty-seven years." Emma's sigh traveled across the ocean. "Now he's moving back into my house."

"Cut him some slack," Auden slid off the car hood, grinding the cigarette beneath her heel. "It hasn't been that long since Kevin died. When Dad passed, I was his age, and in way worse shape. I literally ran half way across the world."

She was met with familiar silence. Emma always retreated when their conversations approached the years that didn't include her. It made what Auden needed to ask that much harder.

Her mother pivoted. "How's Kittie?"

"She's okay," Auden subconsciously chewed on her bottom lip. "Yesterday she asked about ear piercings for her birthday. I said twelve, like we agreed, but she's already crafting her argument for why seven is close enough."

Emma's laughter softened something in Auden's chest. For a moment, this felt normal — calling her mother for idle conversation instead of speaking to a stranger who shared her DNA. Seven, maybe eight years since Emma had re-emerged into her life, and still Auden found herself navigating the careful distance between them.

"Oh, she reminds me so much of you."

Auden closed her eyes, phone pressed to her ear. Her free hand flexed instinctively as wind stirred her hair across her face. Traffic hummed in the distance, weaving through the lingering scent of tobacco that clung to her jacket.

How would Emma even know? Her mother had only ever known her—truly known her—as an adult woman. And yet she made these comments, these casual observations that suggested otherwise. As if she possessed some endless memory bank of Auden through the years, filled with outgrown quirks and mannerisms and habits that had somehow been passed down in Catherine's blood too.

The presumption of it stung more than the absence ever had.

More than anything else, it was just heartbreaking.

"Mom." Her eyes opened.

"Yes?"

The questions circled: When did you know you had to leave? How did you find the strength to abandon everything, including your two-year-old daughter and never look back?

"Nothing. I just... I'm glad you answered."

"I always answer when you call, sweetheart."

The endearment struck her center. Sweetheart. As if twenty-eight years of silence could be bridged by pet names and small talk about broken engagements.

"I should go. Catherine gets out soon."

"Of course." Emma replied softly. "Give her my love."

"I will."

After hanging up, Auden remained in the parking lot, staring at the cigarette pack in her palm.

Dr. Walsh's concerned expression. Cillian's eyes lingering too long on her hands. Catherine falling asleep in Auden's lap. Emma's voice saying "sweetheart" with casual ownership. For once, her hand didn't shake.

She dropped the pack into her glove compartment when she climbed back into the car. She started the engine and drove toward St. Margaret's Primary.

When she finally pulled into the school car park, Catherine was waiting by the gates with Ms. McDonnell, her small frame dwarfed by an oversized backpack that threatened to topple her with each step.

"Mummy's here!" Catherine's face lit up as she ran toward the car, her enthusiasm cutting through Auden's numbness like sunlight through fog. Warmth crept back into Auden's face as she smiled through the windscreen. Catherine's morning braid had completely unraveled throughout the day, and her dark hair bounced wildly as she stomped across the pavement in her too-big school shoes.

She climbed into the back seat and Auden waited for the gentle click of her seatbelt before pulling away, offering Ms. McDonnell a quick wave.

Through the rearview mirror, Auden caught sight of a small smudge of dirt across Catherine's high cheekbone. Evidence of playground adventures.

"How was school?"

Catherine launched into an animated recap as they drove toward the football pitch: finger painting masterpieces, Tommy Morrison's unfortunate taste for paste during art class, and something about a lost tooth that earned Sarah Jenkins fifty pence from the tooth fairy. But as they hit a pocket of traffic, her voice shifted.

"I'm hungry," she announced with theatrical flair, clutching her stomach like she might waste away.

Auden glanced at the dashboard clock. Three-fifteen. Charlie's match started at half past, and there was no time to swing by home for a snack. No time for anything, really — just this constant race from one obligation to the next.

"We'll get something at the match," she called back, fingers drumming against the steering wheel. "Maybe they'll have those little bags of popcorn you like."

Catherine's face brightened, her feet swinging against the seat in anticipation. "Will Daddy be there too?"

The question hung in the air as traffic suddenly cleared. Auden's foot pressed too hard on the accelerator, and they lurched forward with enough force to make Catherine squeal.

"Shit," Auden muttered under her breath, then quickly glanced in the mirror. "Sorry, love. Mummy's foot slipped."

Catherine giggled, her head lolling against the headrest as she watched the blur of trees stream past her window. Her question about her father dissolved into the hum of the engine, unanswered — because Auden didn't know if Cillian would show up. She'd learned it was kinder to offer no promises about her father than to watch disappointment cloud her daughter's face when he inevitably failed to appear.

The football pitch was a sea of mud and chaos when they finally arrived. Parents lined the sidelines in their autumn coats, breath visible in the crisp air. Auden pulled her jacket tighter as she and Catherine climbed the metal bleachers, the cold seeping through the thin aluminum.

"There's Charlie!" Catherine pointed to the field where Charlie was warming up with his teammates, his lanky frame lost in the oversized jersey. Auden scanned the crowd for Cillian's familiar silhouette, though she already knew he wouldn't be there.

"Auden!" A voice called from behind them. Jenni appeared, wrapped in a plaid cloth jacket and long black trousers, climbing the bleachers with the grace despite the heels on her feet. Jenni was still everything Auden sometimes felt she wasn't — always effortlessly put together, her black hair styled in a way that looked casual but probably took an hour to achieve.

Their relationship, though tumultuous at its core, had calmed over the years. Catherine's birth had shifted the way they saw one another. There was something about loving the same man's children that created its own kind of truce. Still, Jenni's easy friendliness caught Auden off guard — like a song played in the wrong key, technically correct but somehow unsettling.

"Jenni, hi." Auden gave her a tight smile, and they settled on an empty, narrow bench about halfway up the stands. Auden shifted to make room, Catherine squeezing between them.

"Hello, beautiful girl," Jenni greeted Catherine, who beamed at the attention. "How was school?"

As Catherine launched into her finger painting saga, Auden found herself watching Jenni's face instead. There was something about the way she handled Catherine — natural, unforced. No checking the time, no mental calculations about what needed to happen next. Just presence.

Auden wondered how she did it.

"Where's Cillian?" Jenni asked, her eyes flicking to Auden once Catherine had finished her story.

"Work, probably," Auden sighed, the words tasting bitter. "Producer meetings I'm sure."

Jenni's expression didn't change, but something shifted in her eyes. "Ah."

The match began with a whistle that pierced the air. Charlie was playing center-forward, his movements quick and decisive. Auden found herself genuinely caught up in the game, shouting encouragement when he made a good pass, groaning when the other team scored.

"He's gotten so much better," Jenni observed. "Remember when he first started? All he did was run toward the ball like a magnet."

"He's been practicing in the garden."

Auden's phone dinged. With a furrowed brow, she fished through her purse to find it. Next to her, Catherine squealed as the other team found the back of the net, clearly oblivious to the rules of the game.

"How many has he missed now?" Jenni asked quietly, her voice barely audible as she leaned back, creating a subtle barrier between her words and Catherine's ears.

Auden didn't need to ask what she meant. Her shoulders sagged slightly. "This season? Three. Maybe four."

Jenni's jaw tightened, her perfectly manicured fingers gripping the metal bleacher seat. "Some things never change, do they? Work will always consume him. It's like he can't help himself." She shook her head, a bitter laugh escaping before she pressed her lips together.

Auden watched Jenni's profile — the way her nostrils flared just slightly, the familiar frustration they both carried like matching bruises. Different relationships, same disappointments.

"Speak of the devil..." Auden glanced at her messages, her stomach already knotting.

[CILLIAN]: Call me.

Catherine tugged at Auden's sleeve. "You said we could get popcorn, remember?"

Auden forced a smile, tucking a strand of Catherine's hair behind her ear. "Of course, sweets. Why don't I go grab some now?" She stood, her knees protesting after sitting on the hard bleacher. "Jenni, would you mind—"

"I've got her." Jenni's expression softened as she looked at Catherine, though the tension remained in her shoulders. "Go handle whatever crisis is more important than his son's match this time."

The words stung because they were true. Auden made her way down the bleachers, weaving between families and teenagers, the metal steps clanging under her feet. The canteen line stretched longer than she'd hoped.

She dialed Cillian's number, pressing the phone tight to her ear as the crowd erupted in another cheer. The line hadn't moved at all — three teenagers ahead of her were debating chip flavors while the lone canteen worker looked ready to throttle them.

"Auden?" His voice sounded distant, distracted.

"Where are you?" She had to raise her voice over the crowd and the distant sound of boots on the pitch.

"I'm at work. Why? Is everything—"

"Charlie's match, Cillian," she practically yelled. The people in front glanced back, uncomfortable. She gave them a dirty look.

"You said you'd try to make it."

The line shuffled forward one person. Auden found herself tapping her foot, thinking about the pack of cigarettes hidden in her car's glove compartment  

A pause. Then: "That's tomorrow night, isn't it?"

Auden closed her eyes, feeling the familiar burn of frustration in her chest. "No. It's right now. I'm literally standing in line for popcorn while our son plays."

"Shit." She could hear him shuffling papers. "I thought — look, I have the Brennan meeting in ten minutes. There's no way I can—"

The teenagers finally moved aside, but now an elderly woman was counting out exact change with painstaking precision. Auden shifted her weight from foot to foot.

"You always have a meeting," she bit back. "Always something more important."

"That's not — "

"Isn't it?" She watched the woman finally complete her transaction, moving one step closer to the front. "When was the last time you made it to one of his matches? Really made it, not just promised to try?"

Another family stepped up to order. Parents and three children all wanting different things. Jesus Christ, she wanted to scream. She rolled her shoulders, tension knotting between her shoulder blades. The cigarettes called to her more insistently now, that familiar phantom taste on her tongue.

"What is it then?" The family ahead was still debating between Coke and 7UP. Auden pressed her free hand to her temple. "Why did you need me to call you?"

"I..." Cillian began, before his voice trailed off to silence on the other end.

"Next!" the canteen worker finally called.

"One large popcorn," Auden said to the worker, then back into the phone: "Well?"

"Look, I just —"

"GOAL!" The announcer's voice boomed over the speakers, drowning out whatever excuse Cillian was offering. The crowd roared, their cheers mixing with the piercing blast of the marching band's brass section that had started up right behind the canteen. Auden pressed the phone harder against her ear, but Cillian's voice was completely lost in the cacophony.

"I can't hear you!" She stepped away from both the canteen and the band, but their triumphant march seemed to follow her, the drums pounding in rhythm with her frustration. "You know, I should probably tell you that Jenni is also beginning to notice your absence."

"Jenni's there?" His tone shifted, defensive now, barely audible through the noise.

"Obviously. She's watching Catherine while I'm down here —" The band reached a crescendo, completely drowning her out. "God damn it, Cillian. Just... forget it. I can't hear shit."

"Auden, wait —"

She hung up, the phone trembling slightly in her hand. The warm bag of popcorn felt like dead weight as she turned back toward the bleachers, weaving through the crowd.

Catherine spotted her first, waving enthusiastically from their seats. Jenni's eyes found hers immediately, reading everything in Auden's expression before she even sat down.

"Let me guess," Jenni began in smug tone. "Something more important came up?"

Auden handed Catherine the popcorn and settled back onto the cold metal seat, watching Charlie sprint across the pitch below. "There's always something more important."

The match ended with Charlie's team winning 2-1. The boys celebrated with muddy high-fives and energy drinks from the canteen. Charlie jogged over to them, his kit filthy and his face flushed with victory.

Catherine broke free from Auden's hand and charged at her brother full-force, squealing his name. Charlie's entire demeanor shifted — gone was the cocky teenager from moments before. He dropped to one knee with ease, his muddy hands gentle as Catherine launched herself onto his back. She wrapped her small arms around his neck, and he hooked his hands under her legs, lifting her effortlessly.

"Easy, Cat," he murmured, adjusting his grip so she was secure. "Don't want you falling off."

"I scored a goal too," Catherine announced proudly from her perch. "In my head."

Charlie laughed, the sound warm and genuine. "That's the best kind of goal." He bounced her as he walked toward Auden and Jenni, completely unbothered by his friends watching nearby — some of them nudging each other at the sight of the tough center-forward being so tender with his little sister.

"That was amazing," Jenni beamed at Charlie as he drew close, his boots clicking against the asphalt. Charlie chuckled, giving her a nonchalant shrug, but Auden could see the pride he was trying to hide.

"Did you see my assist?" he asked them both, shifting Catherine's weight slightly.

"It was brilliant," Auden murmured, and meant it. "Your footwork is getting so much better."

"Hell yeah it is."

"Language," Jenni warned, glancing pointedly at Catherine, whose cheeks were bright with excitement. Her arms tightened around Charlie's neck with a giggle.

"Where's Dad?" Charlie asked, his eyes scanning the crowd behind them with the kind of hope that made Auden's chest ache.

Auden and Jenni shared a look — the same look they'd exchanged countless times before. Charlie's smile didn't disappear immediately, but something shifted in his expression, a subtle dimming that he tried to hide by adjusting Catherine on his back as she slipped.

"He got held up at work," Auden said carefully, hating how familiar the words felt. "But he wanted me to tell you how proud he is."

Charlie's jaw tightened almost imperceptibly. "Right. Yeah, okay." He bounced Catherine again, forcing brightness back into his voice. "Did you see me score, Cat?"

"It was the best goal ever," Catherine declared, oblivious to the undercurrent of disappointment.

"You were great out there," Auden continued quickly, trying to rebuild the moment. "That pass in the second half — I thought you were going to score another yourself."

"Coach says I should practice my left foot more," Charlie said, and for a moment he was just a sixteen-year-old boy again. "Maybe we can work on it this weekend, when I come over?"

Auden nodded. "That would be nice."

"I should get this one home," Jenni sighed, reaching up to ruffle Charlie's hair. He was almost as tall as her now. "School tomorrow."

"Nooo," Catherine whined, tightening her grip around Charlie's neck. "I don't want to go home. I want to stay with Charlie."

"Come on, Cat," Charlie said softly, crouching down so she could slide off his back. But instead of letting go, Catherine clung tighter.

"Please? Just a little longer?"

Charlie gently loosened her arms, and her feet hit the ground. Charlie turned to face her, his hands on her shoulders. "Hey."

Catherine gazed up, openly pouting, and he smiled. "I'll be over in a few days, yeah? Friday, I think. And we'll go to the park — just you and me. We can work on your football skills."

Catherine's face lit up. "Just us?"

"Just us," he promised, holding out his pinky. "Pinky swear."

She linked her tiny finger with his, her disappointment forgotten. "Can we get ice cream after?"

"If you're good for your Mum," Charlie said, glancing at Auden with a small smile.

Jenni's expression softened as she watched them. "Come on then. Say goodbye to Auden. It's getting late."

Charlie hugged Auden's briefly, the way all boys hugged their mothers at that age, before turning to Catherine for one more embrace. He lifted her up again, spinning her once before setting her down.

"See you soon and be good, or no ice cream!" He shouted behind his shoulder as he sauntered away, some of his teammates already calling his name as his attention turned towards the locker rooms.

Even as Charlie's shoulders straightened, putting his game face back on for his friends, Auden couldn't help but think about that moment of vulnerability, the way he'd absorbed his father's absence without complaint and channeled it into tenderness for his sister instead.

Her phone buzzed with another text from Cillian.

[CILLIAN]: How did the match go? I'm really sorry I missed it. Home by 9.

She stared at the message, her thumb hovering over the keyboard. She wanted to write back something sharp, something that would make him understand how it felt to watch his son's face fall, to see Charlie hide his disappointment behind gentle care for Catherine.

But she didn't.

[AUDEN]: charlie was brilliant. see you later.

Because what else was left to say?