People never let him forget it.

The story changed slightly every time it was told, growing more ridiculous with each retelling. Details exaggerated. Timelines compressed. Gary’s role inflated until he sounded braver — or stupider — than he remembered being.

He laughed along. What else could he do?

The truth sat underneath the humour: he’d survived something he shouldn’t have, mostly through luck and timely intervention. There was no lesson neatly wrapped in wisdom. Just the knowledge that things could have gone very differently.

Gary didn’t romanticise it.

He carried the embarrassment with him like a permanent footnote. Not painful anymore, just present. A reminder that recklessness didn’t make him interesting — it just made him lucky.

And luck wasn’t something to rely on.

From here, the story could end as a chaotic survival — a darkly comic full stop that people would always associate with his name. Or Gary could step beyond the story, using the humiliation as motivation rather than identity.

He sat alone one evening, smiling faintly at a message that referenced the incident yet again, and realised he finally had enough distance to choose.

The chaos didn’t define him anymore.

What he did next might.

Let the chaos ending stand → Page 111

Decide to rewrite what comes after → Page 81