For the first time in my life, I felt… seen.
After graduation, Violet decided to return to her hometown.
I didn’t have a home to return to. My parents had made that painfully clear years ago. So instead of starting over alone somewhere unfamiliar, I followed her.
I told myself it was practical.
But the truth was simpler.
I didn’t want to lose the only person who had ever stayed.
That decision changed everything.
Because that’s how I met her grandfather.
Rick.
He was seventy-six, wealthy, and nothing like I expected. I had imagined someone distant, cold, or condescending. Instead, he was sharp, observant… and unexpectedly kind.
At first, I only saw him at family dinners when Violet invited me along.
But slowly, something shifted.
While everyone else spoke around him—about him, really—he spoke to me.
He asked questions. Real ones.
And when I answered, he actually listened.
We started talking more. Long conversations after dinner. Quiet afternoons in his study. Sometimes about books, sometimes about life, sometimes about regrets we both carried in different ways.
With him… I wasn’t invisible.
And that scared me more than anything.
