By the time I reach the bottom of the staircase, I feel hollow.

Everything in my life feels like it’s cracking open, one piece at a time, exposing memories I thought I had buried deep.

My chest feels like it’s caving in, as if every inhale brings with it a piece of my past I never wanted to relive.

The walls seem to close in around me, heavy with the silence that now fills the house.

For a man who’s always been in control calculating, strategic, this kind of emptiness ...