That’s the sentence people hesitate around, like it might crack something if said too cleanly.

His anger filled rooms before he did.

It taught me how to measure my footsteps, how to read a face for danger, how to swallow words halfway up my throat.

I learned early that love could coexist with fear, and that no one would tell you what to do with that.

We did not have a good relationship.

We had proximity.

We had obligation.

We had years stacked on top of each other without resolution.

There are things I rehearsed saying to him.

Whole speeches that never made it past my teeth.

Accusations softened into questions.

Questions swallowed by timing.

I told myself there would be another day when he was calmer, when I was braver, when we would finally speak like equals.

Then he died.

And suddenly every unsaid thing became permanent.

People talk about regret like it’s one feeling but it isn’t.

It’s layered.

Regret for what I didn’t say.

Regret for what I did say too sharply.

Regret for wanting something from him he never knew how to give.

Regret for still wanting it anyway.

I miss the version of him that never existed.

The father I kept hoping would arrive if I waited long enough.

The man who might have apologised if he’d learned the language for it.

Sometimes I get angry at him again, even now.

At the way death feels like an escape.

At the way it closed the door without asking me if I was finished.

Other times I wonder if he carried his own unsaid things.

If anger was the only emotion he was ever allowed to keep.

If he loved me in ways I didn’t recognise because I was too busy surviving him.

I don’t know what to do with a grief that doesn’t want forgiveness.

I don’t know how to mourn someone who hurt me and still mattered.

All I know is that he’s gone,

and the conversation ended without my consent.

So I carry it instead.

The anger.

The love.

The silence.

The weight of what will never be answered.