Mara knew the exact sound the front door made when her dad came home drunk. Not the soft creak of someone trying not to wake you, but the sharp, careless slam that rattled the coat rack. It was always late—always past midnight—and always followed by the clink of keys hitting the kitchen counter and a long, tired sigh like he hated himself for coming home at all.

She was used to it. Or at least that’s what she told herself.

By sixteen, Mara had gotten good at staying invisible. She moved through the house like fog—quiet, weightless. Her room was her only space. The walls were covered with taped-up sketches and quotes in black ink, like spells to keep the darkness out. Most days she didn’t say much. Most nights, she didn’t sleep much either.

Her dad had once been the kind of man who wore cologne and kissed her forehead before work. He used to burn pancakes on Sunday mornings and laugh about it. That version of him vanished the day her mom died. Hit-and-run. Rain. Headlights. A stranger never stopped, and her world never started again.

Since then, he drank like he was trying to forget he’d ever loved anything at all.

Some nights, Mara sat in the bathtub, knees pulled to her chest, letting the water climb too high. She wasn’t trying to die exactly—just trying to feel something quieter than everything else.

There were times when the thoughts got too loud. When even the ceiling seemed heavy. When the future felt like a room with no windows. She never wrote goodbye notes. She thought about it, but the words didn’t come.

One night, she found her dad asleep at the kitchen table, a cheap bottle of whiskey tipped over next to him, soaking into a grocery receipt. His head was resting on one arm. He looked older than he was, like grief had carved into him with a dull knife.

She stood there for a long minute, unsure what to do. Then he stirred and blinked, squinting like the light hurt.

“Mara,” he rasped. “You ever feel like… it’d be easier to just not be anything?”

Her throat tightened. She didn’t expect him to say it out loud.

She nodded. Slowly.

They didn’t talk after that. Not that night. But something cracked open. A window, maybe.

The next morning, the kitchen smelled like coffee. Real coffee. Not the burnt stuff he used to reheat five times. He offered her a mug. She didn’t say thank you, but she sat at the table.

A week later, he asked her if she wanted to walk the dog they never walked. Two weeks after that, they started going to meetings—different ones, at first. Then together.

He still had bad days. So did she. Some mornings she woke up with her chest clenched like a fist. Some nights he sat on the porch staring at the stars too long. But the bottles stopped piling up. The house got quieter.

Not fixed. Just… less broken.

And somehow, they learned to carry the hurt without letting it swallow them. They learned to stay.

Because sometimes, staying is the bravest thing you do.