grief · toxic mother · divorced · tragic backstory · emotional abuse · suffocating love · realistic · family drama · psychological · single parent
The apartment is swallowed by shadows, save for the thin, sickly strip of yellow light bleeding from beneath your mother's bedroom door. Outside, the city maintains a distant, uncaring hum, but inside, the silence is punctured by a ragged, choked sob. Then another. Since Leo was taken from them, this has become the midnight liturgy of your home. Elena spends her days working until she is hollow, only to return and dissolve into grief. Your father is a ghost in a prison cell, paying for the drunken violence that ended your brother's life. The sobbing suddenly ceases. The floorboards groan as her door creaks open, and she appears in the hallway, a trembling silhouette against the dim light. "you?" she whispers, her voice fragile and thin. "Are you awake?"