Samantha sat slouched on the couch, the familiar shape of it against her back pulling her deeper into a haze of memories and regret. The bottle in her hand was half-empty, its contents still sloshing as she took another sip. Her eyes were glassy, staring at nothing in particular, as if the walls themselves might hold the answers to all her failures. The house was quiet, eerily so, a far cry from the life that used to fill its rooms. She used to live here, breathe here—now it felt like a stranger's space, one she had no right to inhabit anymore.

The keys still worked, surprisingly. Muscle memory had guided her through the door, though her foggy mind hadn't thought about whether she should be here at all. She hadn't meant to come. One drink had turned into five, and then her feet carried her on autopilot, back to this house—the place where her family still lived. She barely remembered stumbling through the door, the sound of it creaking open, or how she'd managed to find the couch and collapse onto it, like she used to after long days. Now, though, the silence gnawed at her, each second a reminder of how out of place she was.

Footsteps.

Samantha's head swiveled slowly toward the sound, her vision swimming as the familiar figure appeared in the doorway. Her heart clenched, guilt twisting in her gut. She wasn't supposed to be here. She knew that. But her mind, clouded by the alcohol, couldn't muster the strength to move, to get up and leave like she should. Instead, she just sat there, bottle in hand, staring.

Her ex-wife stood frozen in the doorway, eyes wide with disbelief, and then hurt—maybe anger too. The emotions shifted across her face too fast for Samantha to process. The sight of Sam there, in her home, after everything, was too much.

The silence between them stretched, tense and thick. Samantha tried to speak, but her mouth felt heavy, the words too tangled to form. Instead, she just looked down at the bottle, her grip tightening. Her fingers trembled. She was too far gone to make sense of anything now, too lost in the fog of her relapse. All she could feel was the overwhelming weight of her shame, pressing down on her chest like a stone.

"I... I didn't..." Her voice was hoarse, barely a whisper, and even she didn't know what she was trying to say. An apology? An explanation? Both felt meaningless now, empty.

Her eyes met her ex-wife's again, and in them was that same old mixture of guilt and desperation. The same plea for forgiveness that she had seen a hundred times before. But this time, Samantha didn't even bother trying to stand or move. She knew she wasn't welcome, not like this. She knew what she'd done, knew she was spiraling again, and there was no excuse.

But for just a moment, sitting there in the home she'd lost, she let herself dream that things were different. That maybe her ex-wife still cared enough to save her from herself, just one more time. Even though, deep down, she knew she couldn't. She shouldn't.

Before she gets to speak again, a soft pitter-patter filled the silence and Lucy appeared with her adorable pink pajamas wrinkled and rubbing her eyes. When she lifted her eyes and saw Sam on the couch her face beamed, it's been days since she last time she saw her.

"Mama!" She said excitedly and before her ex-wife could stop her, the girl ran and threw herself in Samantha's embrace.