Chapter 163

Chapter 163

Dante’s POV

Two months.

That was how long I had been coming to this office every Tuesday and Thursday.

The room had become familiar enough that I no longer noticed the muted cream walls or the bookshelf tucked into the corner. The clock ticked softly above the window, marking the passing minutes with a patience I had spent years trying to learn. I sat opposite Dr. Harper, my hands resting loosely on my knees instead of clenched together the way they had been during our first session.

Back then, every answer had been a battle.

Now, I spoke , not because the memories had become easier, but because carrying them alone had become harder.

Dr. Harper studied me for a quiet moment before asking, “When you left home, what did you think you were protecting your family from?”

I looked down at my wedding ring. The question settled somewhere deep inside me.

“I wasn’t protecting them from danger,” I admitted after a long silence. “I was protecting them from me.”

She waited.

“I wasn’t afraid they’d stop loving me.” The words came slowly, each one feeling heavier than the last. “I was afraid they’d learn they were happier with me standing beside them than actually needing me.”

My throat tightened as familiar memories surfaced.

“I watched Elena run her business like she’d been doing it her whole life. Every supplier knew Adam. Every schedule was already in place. Grace knew exactly what to do without anyone asking.”

I let out a quiet laugh that carried no amusement.

“Then there was breakfast.”

I could still see it as clearly as if it had happened that morning.

“Bella was laughing. Mrs. Peters was teasing everyone. Adam fit into every conversation so naturally that it looked effortless. They weren’t replacing me. They were just… living.”

I looked at the floor. “No one pushed me out.” A faint smile touched my lips before disappearing again. “That somehow made it worse.”

Dr. Harper leaned forward slightly. “Did anyone tell you that you didn’t belong?”

I shook my head. “No.”

“Did Elena?”

“No.”

“Did Bella?”

“No.”

“Did Adam?”

Again, I shook my head. “No.”

She held my gaze. “Did anyone ask you to leave?”

The answer came almost immediately. “No.”

She nodded gently.

“Then whose voice convinced you that you weren’t needed?”

The room became impossibly still. For the first time, I didn’t search for someone else to blame.

The answer had been sitting inside me all along. “…Mine.” I exhaled slowly. “It was mine.”

The realization stung because it was true. Prison hadn’t only taken years from my life, it had changed the way I saw myself.

Every kindness had felt like pity and every routine had looked like proof that life had moved on without me.

I hadn’t gone home expecting to be welcomed. I had gone home expecting to discover there was no place left for me.

“I left because I believed something that wasn’t true,” I said quietly. “I thought I was seeing reality.”

Dr. Harper smiled softly. “What you were seeing was fear.”

The afternoon air felt lighter when I stepped outside the clinic. Instead of calling for a taxi, I found myself wandering into the park across the street.

Children ran across the grass with the reckless joy only children possessed.

A father crouched beside a little boy, patiently steadying the back of a bicycle while the child insisted he could ride on his own.

Not far away, a little girl chased a flock of pigeons, laughing every time they scattered into the air.

A young couple walked past me arguing over whose turn it was to choose dinner. Before they had gone ten steps, they were laughing.

Two months ago, scenes like these would have hollowed me out, they would have reminded me of everything prison had stolen.

Today, they reminded me of everything I still wanted.

I reached into my pocket and unlocked my phone. My thumb found the photo gallery almost automatically.

Elena.

Bella.

Another picture of Bella proudly holding up the drawing she’d made of our family.

I had never deleted it. I wasn’t sure I ever could.

A smile found its way onto my face. I brushed my thumb gently across Elena’s smiling face on the screen before looking up at the families filling the park.

“I miss home,” I whispered.

For the first time since I had walked away two months earlier, those three words didn’t fill me with guilt.

They filled me with hope.

The apartment was quiet when I returned that evening.

For two months, these four walls had held together the pieces of a man who had walked away from everything he loved. The silence had given me room to think. The routine had forced me to face parts of myself I had buried long before prison ever took my freedom.

This place had helped me heal, but it had never become home.

My eyes settled on the worn notebook resting on the small table by the window.

Dr. Harper had insisted I write in it after every session, even on the days when I claimed I had nothing worth saying.

I picked it up and slowly turned the pages. The first entries were difficult to read.

They deserve better.

I only make things harder.

Maybe leaving was the only thing I could still do right.

Every page carried the weight of guilt I had mistaken for truth. I turned another page.

The handwriting hadn’t changed, but the man behind it had.

Today I laughed without feeling guilty. Maybe being loved and being needed aren’t the same thing.

Healing isn’t proving I’m strong. It’s learning to stop hiding when I’m not.

A faint smile found its way onto my face.

Somewhere along the journey, my words had stopped sounding like a goodbye and started sounding like a way back.

I closed the notebook gently. For weeks, I had believed healing meant staying away until I became someone worthy of my family.

Now I finally understood. Healing had never been about disappearing forever, it was about finding the courage to return without pretending I was no longer broken.

I crossed the room and pulled the same duffel bag from the wardrobe.

The zipper made the same quiet sound it had made two months earlier. Back then, I had packed because I believed there was no place left for me.

Tonight, I packed because I was finally ready to find my place again.

The next morning, I stopped by Dr. Harper’s office before leaving. She smiled the moment she saw the bag resting beside my feet.

“So,” she said softly, “you’re going home.”

“I am.”

She walked me to the door. “Remember, Dante, healing doesn’t end because you’re going home.”

I nodded, feeling a calm certainty settle inside me. “I know.”

A smile tugged at my lips.

“It just doesn’t have to happen alone anymore.”

Outside, I placed my bag into the back of a waiting taxi. As the driver pulled away from the curb, I looked ahead instead of behind.

This time, I wasn’t running from my life. I was finally going home.