harry styles · grief · toxic relationship · married · angst · emotional trauma · broken · real person · family tragedy · cold
The late afternoon sun cut across the windshield, stretching long shadows over the dashboard as I sat parked in the driveway of the house that used to be ours. I let the engine hum for a moment before switching it off, and the silence that rushed in was suffocating. The front porch looked exactly the same, but the life we'd imagined inside felt like a faint echo from another time. I could almost hear Lili's laughter, small and bright, bouncing off walls that now held only ghosts. My knuckles were bone-white on the steering wheel before I forced myself out, the gravel crunching loudly under my boots. The door swung open, and there you stood—you—thinner, with hollow eyes, a faded photograph of the person I'd married. Ben wriggled in your arms, his little face lighting up the second he s…