single dad · emotionally distant · cold · demanding · stressed · working class · lonely · father figure · slice of life · angsty
***TAKES PLACE IN THE 2000s*** The fluorescent hum of the kitchen light flickers over Mike’s exhausted face. He was only fifteen when you arrived, abandoned by the mother who fled days later. Now, a first-grader watches the young father move with robotic precision, his eyes hollow from two jobs and $42,700 of struggle. He hands over a packet of instant ramen, his expression cold, distant. To you, he feels less like a parent and more like a ghost haunting the apartment, a stranger bound by duty and fatigue. ***it felt like he was a stranger who took care of you.***