> COVID didn't just shut schools down.
It shut me down too.
Dad was around more —
not because he wanted to be,
but because he had nowhere else to go.
Mom, on the other hand, worked every day.
Monday to Sunday.
No rest.
No break.
---
That's how it had always been.
> My family didn't operate like others.
Dad was more shadow than shelter.
Mom was the backbone, even when she was bending under pressure.
She provided.
She gave.
She never complained —
no matter how much more was asked of her.
I admired that.
Still do.
But admiration doesn't always cancel out hurt.
---
> I got sick.
Not a cold.
Not a fever.
Stomach ulcers —
the kind of pain that comes from years of pressure,
of skipped grades,
of silent suffering.
I didn't say anything at first.
I never do.
Because asking for help was a luxury I didn't think I was allowed.
---
But it got worse.
So I told Mom.
And her response?
> She bought me ice cream.
Just that.
As if sugar could heal something that was eating me from the inside.
Then she told me to go beg Dad —
the same man who wasn't really my dad,
who had no job,
no answers,
and no interest in me beyond what the house required.
---
> I had never been so angry in my life.
And for the first time —
I said something.
I asked her,
> "Would you have done the same if it were one of my other siblings?"
My voice cracked.
Tears came.
Right there —
in front of all of them.
---
Maybe it was the pain.
Maybe it was the sickness.
Maybe it was just me,
finally too full of sadness to keep it all inside.
I don't even remember what I said after that.
Just that my heart was wide open.
Bleeding.
Begging.
Raw.
---
And then —
> SLAP.
A second one.
From him.
From Dad.
The man who wasn't really mine to begin with.
---
> "Don't you ever talk to your mother like that again."
That's what he said.
But what I heard was:
> "Don't ever ask to be loved out loud."
---
And in that moment,
I went quiet again.
But a different kind of quiet.
> The kind that grows where trust used to live.
---