The realization struck not as a single blow, but as a flood.Memories broke through the surface — bright, blinding, merciless.
The office, the phone call, the trembling hands.The letter on the desk that said final notice.The whisper of my wife's voice through a closed door.The laughter that was not mine.
And then — the rooftop.The rain.The edge.
I saw it all again: the way my fingers had clenched the railing, the taste of metal in the air, the thought that burned through my head like lightning:
"It will end everything. The pain, the debt, the shame."
I had believed that lie.And in believing it, I had broken the world around me — left a son waiting by a window that would never open again.
Now here he was — the child I had abandoned to sorrow, still alive, still small, still waiting for someone who never came.
Eli looked up at me, his eyes calm, innocent, but filled with something ancient — the understanding of someone who has known loss too early.
"You don't have to cry," he said softly. "Everyone leaves sometimes."
His words tore through me.My hands trembled on the table.
"I left you," I whispered. "I shouldn't have."
He smiled a little — that same gentle, almost forgiving smile I hadn't earned.
"Then don't leave again."
The fire crackled quietly between us, and for the first time in all the lifetimes I had lived, the weight of guilt began to lift — not because I was forgiven, but because I finally faced what I had done.