The waistband was a prison, its elastic squeezing me against the warm curve of Dad’s hip. The air was heavy, thick with the scent of cotton and skin, every movement a muffled jolt that threatened to crush me. His boots thudded as he descended the stairs, each step an earthquake that shook my tiny frame. His voice boomed above, warm but distracted. “Bye, Nate! Bye, Max!” he called, the words echoing through the house. I clawed at the fabric, desperate to shift, to make him feel me, but the waistband held tight, unyielding.
The front door creaked open, letting in a rush of cool morning air laced with the scent of dew and asphalt. The lock clicked shut with a heavy thunk, and Dad’s boots crunched across the gravel driveway. Each stride sent a shockwave through me, the elastic grinding against my back. A car door groaned open, and the world tilted as he slid into the driver’s seat. The leather seat creaked, and I felt the waistband shift, the pressure loosening for a fleeting moment—then tightening again as he settled in.
But something was wrong. The fabric beneath me twitched, a subtle ripple as Dad adjusted his posture. My grip faltered, my tiny hands slipping on the coarse weave. The waistband stretched, and I slid, my stomach lurching as I tumbled downward. Panic clawed at my chest. Was I falling forward, toward the front where the fabric bunched near his groin, the heat and weight of his body a looming threat? Or backward, toward the coarse, shadowy expanse of his lower back, where the air grew warmer and the fabric dipped into a hairy crevice? The world spun, and I couldn’t tell which way was which—just that I was slipping, a speck lost in the dark folds of his uniform, my fate hanging on where I’d land.
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