Page 105 of Daddy's Little Christmas

No off-key humming.

No presence.

A slow, heavy weight settled in my stomach.

I sat up, the floor cold under my feet as I stood. I pulled on sweatpants and moved through the house on instinct.

Guest bedroom.

Bathroom.

Kitchen

Porch.

Empty, empty, empty, empty.

The mugs we’d used for cocoa last night sat rinsed in the drying rack. The blanket we’d had on the couch was folded—neatly, carefully, like he’d wanted to leave it the way he’d found it.

On the hook by the door, his coat was gone.

My breath caught.

I stepped closer. Something white waited on the small table by the entryway, propped against the bowl where I kept my keys. My name in his handwriting on the front.

Graeme.

I didn’t open it right away.

I stood there, fingers pressed to the envelope, letting the reality sink in.

He’d left.

Of course he had. He had a long drive ahead of him and a life back in Chicago. Leaving early made sense. Avoid the worst traffic. Avoid the possibility of a goodbye that would rip both of us raw.

I understood.

It still landed like a punch.

Sunlight spilled in through the front door window, painting the floor in pale rectangles. Somewhere, the day was starting—the neighbor to my right shoveling her driveway, someone starting a car that didn’t want to start.

In here, time felt paused.

I finally slid a thumb under the edge of the envelope and opened it.

His handwriting slanted across the page, familiar now in a way that made my throat tighten. I took a breath and started to read.

Whatever words he’d left me, whatever thanks, whatever hopes, whatever small, brave bits of honesty he’d decided to put down instead of saying them out loud—they blurred for a second as my eyes stung.

I blinked hard, then read them again, slower.

A quiet certainty settled under the ache.

Whatever this had been—two weeks, a holiday bubble, a queer kid’s dream of Christmas in a town built by love—it mattered. It had changed something fundamental in both of us.

I pressed the letter against my chest for a moment, then folded it carefully and slipped it into my pocket.

Outside, the snow kept falling.