Chapter 5: Lost in the Past

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From then on, I was completely lost.

Mornings came and went in a fog—alarms silenced, breakfast skipped, the world spinning by without me.

I simply couldn't accept that such a young life had been snuffed out by my own actions.

Every time I saw a kid Tyler's age, my stomach twisted. Report cards in the mail, birthday invitations from old classmates—they all felt like cruel reminders.

Even if it had been a stranger, I couldn't have accepted it.

Tragedy is always someone else's problem—until it isn't. I found myself reading every news story about fires, about accidents, searching for someone to blame. But the mirror only showed my own face.

Let alone my own son.

Every picture, every memory was a knife twist. I kept his sneakers by the front door, unable to pack them away.

My own flesh and blood.

His baby footprint still hung in a frame by the kitchen table. I touched it every morning, like a ritual.

I started drifting through life, always terrified of making another mistake.

I became the guy who double-checked the oven, the smoke detectors, every lock on every door. I jumped at every siren. I stopped driving past the high school.

Whether at work or in daily life, guilt and fear constantly haunted me.

My coworkers tiptoed around me, unsure of what to say. I missed deadlines, forgot birthdays, spent lunch breaks staring out the window.

My wife couldn't accept the tragedy either, and handed me the divorce papers.

She left them on the kitchen counter, next to Tyler's last math test. I couldn't even sign right away—my hands shook too much.

"I'm a sinner. There's nothing to let go of."

The words tumbled out one night, more confession than conversation. She didn't argue—just looked at me with eyes too tired to fight.

Facing my ex-wife's concerned question, I shook my head.

She tried to reach me, to pull me back from the brink, but I was already too far gone. The walls between us grew thicker every day.

After all those years, she never remarried.

She dated, once or twice, but nothing stuck. The pain had changed her, too. Some things you can't ever outrun.

After grieving for more than half a year, she threw herself into work to distract herself.

She started working overtime, picking up extra shifts, volunteering on weekends. It was her way of coping—always moving, never stopping.

Now she's achieved some success.

Her name pops up in local business journals now and then. She bought a new condo downtown, but she never redecorated—just blank walls, one photo of Tyler by the window. A stack of Amazon boxes by the door, untouched, just gathering dust.

Worried about my mental state, she invites me to this coffee shop every year—the one next to the old gaming lounge—hoping to encourage me to face reality and move on.

She always orders a tall black coffee, always waits until I've finished mine before bringing up the hard stuff. It's her little ritual, a kindness I can't repay.

But for me, it's useless.

The past is a movie stuck on repeat. The coffee shop smells like burnt beans and nostalgia, and the view out the window never changes.

Scenes from that year keep replaying in my mind, over and over.

Even the smallest details come back: the barista's tattoo, the song playing on the radio, the way the sunlight caught the dust in the air.

Whenever I sit nearby and look at that familiar street, I always ask myself:

If it hadn't been for me, would my son still be alive?

It's a question I can't answer, but I ask it anyway, every time I pass that old gaming lounge. Sometimes I think I see Tyler's reflection in the glass, grinning back at me.