Chapter 2

Katherine waved a dismissive hand.

"Oh, don't be silly, Lily. He's your father."

Then she turned her glare back to me.

"But honestly, Michael, you can't just leave her. What were you thinking?"

Lily, emboldened by her mother's focus on my supposed failing, tugged on Vance's sleeve.

"I like Dr. Vance more," she declared, loud enough for the other waiting parents to hear. "He's nice."

My face burned. The familiar ache of being erased started to throb in my chest.

Dr. Vance stepped forward, his expression a perfect mask of concern.

"Now, now, Katherine, Mike. Let's not upset Lily."

He crouched down to her level. "It's okay, Lily. Your dad was just on an important call."

He gave me a look that was supposed to be understanding, but it felt like a physician examining a particularly uninteresting specimen.

Lily, however, wasn't done.

She looked from Vance to me, then back to Vance, her small face serious.

"Can Dr. Vance be my new dad?"

The question hung in the sterile air of the clinic.

The hope in her voice was a fresh wound.

Vance patted her head, a small, satisfied smile playing on his lips for a fraction of a second before he smoothed it away.

Katherine exploded.

Not at Lily. At me.

"See what you do, Michael?" Her voice was low, furious.

"You upset her! You're barely present as it is! Your only job is to look after her, and you can't even do that properly!"

Her words echoed the sentiments from my past life, the constant, grinding devaluation.

"You're a failure as a father!"

Lily nodded solemnly, agreeing with her mother.

I looked at them, Katherine's face contorted with anger, Lily's mirroring her mother's disdain, Vance standing beside them, the picture of calm support.

A wave of utter weariness washed over me.

The fight, the twenty years of trying in my previous life, it was all gone.

"Fine," I said, my voice flat, devoid of emotion. "You're right."

I turned and walked away, their voices fading behind me.

Katherine's anger seemed to evaporate the moment I was out of direct line of sight.

I heard her voice soften as she spoke to Vance.

Lily giggled, a happy sound that didn't include me.

I glanced back. Vance had his arm around Katherine's shoulders, a comforting gesture. Lily was holding his other hand.

They walked out of the clinic together, a tight, exclusive unit.

I stood there, alone, the silence of my exclusion deafening.

The pain was still there, a dull throb, but something new was hardening around it: resolve.

This time, I wouldn't just endure.

This time, I would act.

I drove. Not home.

The El Paso County Courthouse loomed ahead.

I parked the car, my movements stiff, mechanical.

Inside, the air was cool, impersonal.

A clerk with tired eyes looked up from her paperwork.

"Can I help you?"

"Divorce papers," I said. My voice sounded distant, even to me.

The words felt heavy, final, yet also strangely liberating.

This was it. The first concrete step towards a different life. My life.