Chapter One
— The Familiar Noise
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"Not every parents are angels,
Not every House, a home.
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I woke to the sound of something breaking.
A vase, maybe. Or a plate. Hard to tell when it was the same crash I had heard almost every morning of my life. The argument that followed was familiar enough to finish itself in my head even before their voices reached my room. I stayed still for a moment, staring at the ceiling as the shouting bled through the walls. Words I didn't want to understand. Words I had stopped trying to stop a long time ago.
It was strange how normal it all felt — the sharp noise of my father's anger, my mother's sharp replies, the thud of something heavy being slammed down. They were the constants of my house. My alarm clock didn't need to ring anymore; they woke me better than anything.
I dragged myself out of bed, not because I wanted to start my day, but because staying in that room meant hearing more of the same, and I didn't have the heart for it. I never did. I didn't ask them who was wrong or right anymore. I didn't want to know. There were no answers in this house — only loud questions thrown like knives.
Work wasn't paradise either, but at least it was quiet.
The research center smelled like disinfectant and cold metal. My hands moved on their own as I prepared the cages, pulling out the mice assigned to me. Small bodies, fragile hearts. I had stopped naming them months ago. Naming made it harder.
The experiments felt endless. Administer the compound. Record the reaction. Watch the life fade out of their tiny eyes. Write down the expected conclusion. Then fail. Again. And again. Until frustration wrapped around my ribs tight enough to steal my breath.
I tossed the stack of experiment papers into the bin without a second thought. Failure didn't deserve to be archived. Not by me.
A few people called out my name as I passed the corridor, but I didn't stop. I didn't even pretend to. I reached for coffee like it was some kind of shield and took a sip, hoping it would shake the fog in my mind. It didn't. My thoughts had a habit of splitting themselves in two — one half stuck in the lab, the other still trapped inside my house, listening for the next argument.
Was I depressed?
Probably.
But putting a label on it didn't change anything. It didn't make the weight any lighter.
This was my life: routine, repetition, silence where there should have been love, pressure where there should have been warmth. Every day looked like the next, and every night felt like a rehearsed exhaustion — not in my bones, but deep in the parts of me I couldn't name.
When I finally pushed open the door to my house that evening, the exhaustion followed me in like a shadow. I wasn't physically tired. My body was fine. It was everything inside me that felt worn thin, stretched past its limit.
But today…
Today I had to talk to them.
I didn't greet them. They didn't expect it. I dropped my bag in my room, changed clothes, and walked back downstairs. My mother was cooking. My father sat on the couch, the glow of the television painting his face in shifting colors. Neither of them looked up as I stepped into the hall.
I stood near the staircase, searching for the right words and not finding any. So I let the truth spill the way it always wanted to.
"I'm going to California. For a project."
Nothing.
Not even a flicker of acknowledgment.
The silence hit harder than any fight ever had. In that moment, the realization slid into me quietly, almost politely:
I didn't exist for them anymore.
So I continued, even though my voice felt thin and breakable.
"I… won't come back for at least a year. It's a contract. I signed it."
My father finally moved. He turned off the TV, shoulders stiffening, and looked at me with an expression I couldn't read.
"Did Maya put you up to this?" he asked, nodding toward my mother as if she were some masterminds pulling invisible strings.
Before I could even open my mouth, my mother slammed a spoon onto the counter.
"Why is it always me?" she screamed. "Why do you blame me for everything?"
And just like that, they were at each other again — voices rising, accusations firing back and forth like bullets. I stood there, their only child, and not one of them turned to see me drowning in the space between them.
My head lowered on its own. My fists tightened. My shoulders curled inward, trying to make myself smaller, trying to disappear from the storm they had created long before I was old enough to speak.
The sounds blurred. Their voices became a distant, muffled storm behind glass. All I could hear was my own mind, repeating the same truth over and over:
Leave.
Leave.
Leave.
I couldn't stay here anymore. Not in a home where I had given everything and received nothing but the leftovers of their rage.
The words tore out of me before I could stop them.
"I'm leaving in the morning!"
They didn't answer. Maybe they didn't hear me. Or maybe they didn't care.
I didn't wait to find out.
I turned and walked to my room, the shouts behind me shifting now — not about dinner or money or betrayal, but about me. About how disrespectful I was. How irresponsible. How badly raised.
Was I badly raised?
Maybe.
Was I a disappointment?
Probably.
I had known it for years.
My eyes burned, but no tears came. They hadn't in a long time. My tears had dried out from overuse, leaving behind a sting with nothing to soothe it.
Tomorrow, I would leave.
And for once, I wouldn't look back.