My legs gave out.
I slid down onto the cold kitchen floor, the tile biting into my skin.
My phone trembled in my hand as my breathing turned shallow and fast.
Simon’s voice echoed in my memory.
“Your parents aren’t celebrating your success, Alyssa,” he had told me.
“They’re calculating it.”
I wanted to believe he was wrong.
But the screenshot wasn’t speculation.
It was a confession.
The Morning Call
At 7:14 a.m., my phone rang.
My mother.
Her voice sounded soft. Sweet. Practiced.
The tone she always used when she needed something.
“Alyssa, sweetheart,” she said gently, as if nothing had happened.
“We need you to come by the house today.”
She paused briefly before finishing the sentence.
“There are things we need to handle.”
Not talk about.
Not process.
Not grieve.
Just handle.
My throat tightened.
I pictured her in the kitchen of my childhood home, the one with the granite countertops she’d bragged about for years, standing there with her arms folded like she was waiting for a contractor.
“What kind of things?” I asked, keeping my voice thin and neutral the way Simon told me to.
