The walk home felt longer than usual.
Eli kept his hoodie up even though the sun had dipped below the horizon. He could still feel Mia's words echoing behind his ribs like a phantom heartbeat."I just want to know if you still want me here."
He didn't know the answer.Not to that.Not to anything anymore.
He passed the gas station near his street — the one where his brothers used to laugh too loudly and buy cheap snacks they never paid for. The one where he'd once waited in the rain, notebook soaked, because he didn't want to go home yet.
But home was where the silence was louder.
When he opened the door, the smell of burnt stew hung in the air. A pot clattered in the kitchen, followed by a muttered curse. He stepped inside as if walking into a battlefield.
His mother didn't look up when he entered.
"So, you finally remembered where this house is?" she said sharply, her back still turned.
"I was at school," Eli replied quietly.
"School?" she scoffed. "Do they teach you to ignore your family there? Teach you to sulk around like some abandoned dog?"
He didn't respond.
His older brother, Aaron, appeared in the hallway, tossing a soccer ball between his hands.
"You should see your face," Aaron laughed. "Always looking like life owes you something. Grow up."
Eli walked past them, but his mother wasn't done.
"Don't walk away when I'm talking, boy," she snapped. "God knows I shouldn't have birthed you. Things have never been right since you came into my life."
His feet froze on the stairs.
Those words — he had heard them before. But tonight, they landed differently. Maybe because they echoed the things he was already thinking.
He turned back slightly.
"Then why didn't you get rid of me when you had the chance?"
The room went still.
His mother narrowed her eyes, lips curling.
"What did you say?"
"Nothing," he muttered, climbing the stairs two at a time before she could reach him.
In his room, the door locked behind him, Eli sank to the floor. His hands trembled as he reached for the diary under his bed — the only place where his voice felt safe.
He opened it to a blank page.
Entry #49She said it again. That I shouldn't have been born. That I ruined everything.
I'm starting to believe her.
Sometimes I wonder if the reason I feel so out of place is because I was never meant to be here at all.
But what kind of mother tells her child they're a mistake?
It was almost a year ago when his grandmother came to visit. She sat with him on the porch, her fingers calloused from years of labor, her eyes too tired to lie.
She'd been speaking in fragments, guilt stitched between her words.
"Your father… he wasn't ready. None of us were. He told your mother to get rid of you."
Eli didn't speak.
"She refused," his grandmother continued. "Said you were hers. That no one would take that from her. But things changed after you came. Your father… he ran."
"Why are you telling me this?" he had asked.
"Because one day you'll ask yourself why you don't belong. And you'll need the truth more than comfort."
He never spoke of it again. Not to her. Not to Mia. Not even to himself.
But now the weight of that story pressed against his ribs like a ticking bomb.
Downstairs, his mother's voice rose again.
"Always sulking. Never thankful. I gave up everything for that boy!"
Eli closed the diary.
He didn't cry. He just sat still, like a ghost watching his own life from the ceiling.
Tomorrow, there'd be school. And people. And moments where he'd have to pretend to be okay.
But tonight, the shadows didn't just sit beside him.
They were him.