Her mouth trembles, but I don’t wait for excuses.
“You stopped being my mother a long time ago.”
I turn before I can see her break. The door slams behind me. The wind chimes tinkle faintly in the night air, soft and mocking, like laughter at my back.
And I walk away, heart pounding, hollow and furious—carrying the weight she chained to me.
* * *
The train comes to a screeching halt, and I sit there waiting for the crowd of people to thin out, and when they do, I force myself to stand, wrapping my varsity jacket around me like a shield. The doors hiss open, and the cold night air slaps me in the face. I welcome it—anything to stop thinking.
I step onto the platform, head down, legs moving on autopilot. The streets outside the station are alive with the usual chaos—horns blaring, people arguing. I barely register any of it.
“Twenty thousand.” That’s all she’d paid. Out of nearly eighty.
The five thousand I’d been saving, skipping meals, and working extra shifts for would’ve cleared the debt. I’d beencounting down the days, crossing them off in my notebook like a prisoner waiting for release.
And she hadn’t been paying it off at all.
The lie had slipped out of her mouth like it was nothing. “I was investing it.” Bullshit. I’d seen the empty bottles under the couch and the scratch-off tickets on the table.
I swallow hard, the taste of betrayal bitter on my tongue.
Rain drizzles against the pavement in uneven rhythms, sharp and cold against my skin. I glance up, catching the dark clouds thickening overhead, and know I won’t make it home dry.
Fitting.
I tuck my hand deeper into my jacket pocket, finger brushing my phone that’s been vibrating for hours now, I ignore it.
I am almost at the bus stop just as the first fat drop of rain falls and turns unexpectedly heavy within seconds. The street turns into a mess of slick pavement and rushing bodies. People scatter like startled pigeons, pulling jackets over their heads or darting into nearby shops. I stop under the edge of a flickering streetlamp, yanking out my left hearing aid before the rain ruins it—
—and someone slams into my shoulder.
The hearing aid flies from my fingers. entering a drain hole
No. No, no, no.
I drop to my knees, ignoring the splash of dirty water as I crawl across the slick pavement.
“Shit,” I mutter, breath catching. The sound of the right ear hearing aid already warbling, like hearing underwater.
My hands sweep across the hole cover, looking inside, but I can’t even see anything. The sky opens up completely, the rain coming down in a furious sheet. My hair sticks to my forehead, cold water dripping into my collar, but I don’t move. I can’t.
“Oh fuck me,” I whisper, throat tightening.
Frustration burns through me, sharp and hot, my day couldn’t get any fucking worse. I squeeze my eyes shut and rip the other hearing aid from my ear without thinking and shove it inside my pocket. The world around me collapses into muffled chaos, honking cars smear into dull blares, voices become shapeless murmurs like the world’s been stuffed with cotton.
Too quiet. Too loud. All wrong.
I sit back on my heels, chest heaving.
The hearing aid is gone. The money’s gone. My trust is gone.
I stare down at my trembling hands, water sliding off my skin in thin rivulets. My vision blurs, not from the rain this time.
I’m so tired.
I get up My legs barely hold me as I stumble toward the bus stop, blinking away tears. There’s no shelter, just a rusted bench slick with water. I stand there anyway, arms wrapped around myself, rain falling hard enough to sting.
