CHAPTER 2
ROBBIE
The day I’d been dreading finally arrived.
I wanted to run. Hide under my bed like the scared child I still was somewhere deep inside. I wanted my dad to comfort me, to make the monsters go away the way he used to. I wasn’t ready to say goodbye. I didn’t want to be a grown-up today.
Standing in front of the mirror, adjusting my tie for the tenth time, I stared into my own eyes and tried to steady my breathing. Dark smudges circled them: Dad’s eyes, Mum’s colouring. A perfect genetic cocktail of exhaustion and grief.
The house was silent. Evan was away visiting his parents, and without his chaotic energy.
..or his boisterous Taylor Swift impressions in a blond wig and bra — the quiet felt oppressive.
If he’d been here, he’d have told me to stop beating myself up, that it was okay to be vulnerable.
But he wasn’t, so I rattled around the house alone with my thoughts.
Then I was climbing into my car again, driving to the house I hated. Only this time, instead of police cars, a black Jaguar hearse and a matching limo waited outside.
We drove in silence to the crematorium in the next town over, each of us lost in our own memories.
I felt detached from reality, like I was watching the world through a fogged-up lens. The weak November sun did nothing to chase away the chill clinging to my bones. Even the smell of fallen leaves felt wrong — too alive for a day like this.
Facing Dad’s siblings, his oldest friends, even the guys from the pub...it hit me harder than I expected. They were grieving, too. We weren’t the only ones who’d lost him.
Inside, Dave led the way to the front row. I followed, numb, my eyes fixed on the coffin. My flowers rested on top, just behind the last photo I ever took of Dad.
After that, everything blurred.
Silent tears streamed down my face, soaking into my shirt. The words spoken at the lectern washed over me — meant to comfort, but instead making me feel cheated. Cheated by time. By fate. By everything we never said.
My throat felt raw, like swallowing sandpaper. When the curtains finally closed — slow, final, merciless — it felt like the end of a stage show with no applause, no encore, no second chances.
Outside, in the small garden of remembrance, people gathered in awkward clusters. The undertaker placed my flowers beneath a marker bearing Dad’s name. My face felt hot and tight as more tears threatened.
I bent down and plucked a white rose from the spray. The thorn pricked my skin — a tiny sting compared to the pain in my chest.
It was over. Done. Never to be again.
Yet I wasn’t ready to let him go.
I looked down at my checklist. Utilities: done. Bills transferred. Banks, internet, phone companies: still to go. Then there were Dad’s social media accounts, online shopping profiles, subscriptions...all the digital footprints that proved he’d existed.
Deleting them felt like erasing him piece by piece.
Suppressing a groan, I fired up Dad’s ancient desktop computer — the one still running Windows XP. The machine wheezed to life like it was offended by the request. The cursor blinked at me, mocking me with its slowness.
Fine. If it wasn’t going to cooperate, I’d free up some memory. First step: delete cookies and internet history.
I clicked the tab.
And froze.
Oh. My. God.
For a second, I genuinely thought I was hallucinating. But no, the list didn’t change when I blinked.
Gay porn. Specifically: older men with younger men.
I stared at the screen, horrified and fascinated in equal measure.
Scrolling back through weeks, months, years — the same sites appeared over and over. Dad had been visiting them regularly. Consistently.
My brain stalled like the computer. I wasn’t disgusted. Just...stunned.
And then, because apparently, I’d lost control of my own limbs, my hand clicked one of the links.
Bodies. Movement. Heat. Intensity.
I couldn’t look away.
My heart pounded. My jeans tightened. And suddenly I was questioning everything I thought I knew about myself.
Was I gay? Bi? Curious? Lonely?
Turned on because it was new?
Turned on because it was men?
I didn’t know.
And Dad — what did this mean for him? Was he gay? Bi? Confused? Exploring? Or just...human?
I didn’t have answers. And I didn’t have the right to judge.
All I knew was that I was rock hard, confused, and spiralling.
It didn’t prove anything. Not about Dad. Not about me.
But it cracked something open inside me — something I’d been ignoring for years.
I clicked “delete all history” before I could think too hard about it. Not to hide it. Not to deny it. Just...to give myself space to breathe.
“Rob, dinner’s ready!” Mum called up the stairs.
I set a defrag to run, adjusted my jeans to hide the evidence of my existential crisis, and headed downstairs.
Dave shouted, “Rob, are you coming sometime today?”
I glanced down at my now-wilting erection and muttered, “Not anymore,” before joining them.