I closed the door to my room behind me and leaned against it, my body trembling with the effort of holding myself together. As soon as I was alone, the dam broke, and tears streamed down my face.
I sank to the floor, hugging my knees as sobs wracked my body. My chest ached from the weight of it all—the shame, the rejection, the anger. But more than anything, I missed her.
My mother.
She’d been the one light in this cold, oppressive house. No matter how strict or unyielding my father was, my mother had always softened his harshness. Her love was boundless, her touch gentle, her words kind. She had a way of making me feel seen, even when the rest of the world dismissed me as the youngest, the least important.
But she was gone now. Taken from me too soon.
I tried to imagine her here, how
