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I clenched my jaw so tight I thought it might snap. Because I didn’t fucking know.

I wanted to fight back, to throw something in his face that would shut him up, but I had nothing. Because he was right.

And maybe that was why I had let Iris consume me—because focusing on her meant I didn’t have to look at the wreckage of my own life.

But this conversation? This moment?

It was forcing me to confront something even worse: I was already too far gone.

The words wrapped around my throat like a noose, tightening with every syllable. This was the fear. The thing that lurked in the shadows, waiting to sink its claws in.

Was I just the guy who peaked too fucking soon? The kid with raw talent but no direction? The name people used to remember before I faded into nothing?

“I’m fine,” I snapped, but it came out more like a plea than a fact. A lie I’d told so many times, I almost believed it myself.

Dad wasn’t buying it. He never did. He leaned forward, elbows bracing against the table, his eyes pinning me down like a trapped animal. Nowhere to run. “Are you? Because all I see is a man wasting his life.”

Each word landed like a gut punch, but he didn’t stop. He never stopped.

“What happens when you’re forty-five? Fifty? You still gonna be the guy chasing beers and picking fights in bars?”

Something inside me snapped. Because that? That fucking hit.

He wasn’t just talking about my future—he was digging into the past I hadn’t outrun. The career that got ripped from my hands. The ref hit that ended everything. The suspension that branded me a failure. It was all still there, festering beneath my skin like an infection I couldn’t shake.

“I fucking know I’m a failure, all right?” The words tore from me, raw and vicious. A confession and a wound all at once. “You don’t have to keep reminding me.”

For the first time, something in his expression flickered. A crack in the armor. Maybe regret. Maybe understanding. But it wasn’t enough. Nothing ever was.

“I’m not calling you a failure,” he said, voice steady but weighted. “I’m asking you to step up.”

I let out a sharp breath, shaking my head. He didn’t get it. He couldn’t see how deep this went.

“Have a life,” he pressed, tone softer but still firm. Like he actually gave a shit. “Build something. You deserve that.”

Deserve. The word felt foreign coming from him, as if I hadn’t spent my whole life being told I had to earn every goddamn thing.

My mind went straight to Iris. The only thing that felt real in this mess. The way she looked at me, the way she fucking saw me—even when I didn’t deserve it. Especially when I didn’t deserve it.

But how the hell was I supposed to build anything when I was already standing in the wreckage?

A bitter laugh scraped its way out of my throat, sharp and ugly, because it was too fucking late for that. Or at least, I’d convinced myself it was.

Dad exhaled through his nose, like he was choosing his next words carefully. Like he already knew he was about to hit a nerve.

“And… be careful with Iris.”

Every muscle in my body went rigid. Fucking sucker punch. My grip tightened around my coffee cup, a hair away from shattering it between my fingers.

He saw it. He’d always had a way of reading me too well, picking apart my weaknesses before I could even recognize them myself.

“What’s that supposed to mean?” I bit out, the words tasting like rust and regret.

Dad didn’t flinch. He just sipped his coffee, his stare pinning me in place like a goddamn spotlight. Like he was already peeling back every layer I’d tried to keep hidden. Measuring just how deep I was in this. Just how completely fucked I already was.

“I see the way you push her. The way you look at her.” His voice was low, even. A scalpel instead of a blade. A warning. “She’s talented. She’s got a future. Don’t… complicate that.”

I let out a slow breath through my nose, forcing myself not to react. Not to give him any more ground than he’d already stolen.