Chapter 2

After that day, everything changed. My mom couldn't pull herself together. It was as if her entire world had collapsed with the death of my father. She spent days and nights in bed, hardly ever getting up. Our close friends tried to comfort her, but it didn't help—things only got worse. For a while, her friend came over often. She took care of mom and helped me, but that didn't last long.

I remember the last time she came. They argued for hours, shouting at each other. In the end, mom kicked her out, and after that day, no one from her circle visited us anymore. I never understood what happened.

Afterward, things got even worse for my mom. She found the easiest way out—alcohol. She would only leave the house with one goal: to buy a bottle. That was the most she could do. She stopped working, stopped cooking. During those days, I ate whatever I could find. Whatever anyone threw my way—that was my breakfast, lunch, and dinner. She barely noticed me anymore, let alone cared for me or showed me affection. The vibrant, beautiful woman she had once been turned into a cold, withered, and sick person. A drunk, for whom the bottle was more important than her son or her friends.

Our house became engulfed in silence and darkness—and it suffocated me.

Every time I tried to talk to her, she would scream, eventually pushing me away. It was painful. Very painful.

Looking back on those days, I always asked myself: "Doesn't she see even a part of the person she loved in me? Doesn't she still have any maternal love left?" I blamed myself. I blamed myself for everything: for not saving her, for not helping. My little head couldn't understand or carry the weight of it all.

When I lost my father, I never thought I would lose my mother too. All this time, I had to raise myself, literally growing like a weed. Eventually, I realized that I had become an orphan, and all I had left to do was accept my fate. Which I did.

But there were still some bright moments. Because of my mom's state and her indifference toward me, my father's friend stepped in. He enrolled me in school and looked after me whenever he could. At first, he would visit us, but he always tried to avoid meeting mom.

After some time, his visits became less frequent. We only saw each other on holidays. Still, Uncle David was always there for me. I think his friendship with my father obligated him to give me the little bit of joy I had. Maybe it was just pity. I'll never know for sure.

When he came over, those rare visits felt like real celebrations to me. I called those days "my personal Christmas." For a while, he became a father to me. Even if just for a brief time.

This period was my light at the end of the tunnel. It saved me. Even if for just a short time, I could dive into my childhood and feel like a happy kid again.

Our neighbors stopped talking to us too. Apart from Uncle David, there were no friends or acquaintances nearby. In the eyes of many, I had become the son of an alcoholic mother, a child from a family that people should avoid. I didn't understand why the neighbors avoided us, and it wasn't until years later that I realized why.

Can you imagine a sense of guilt that shouldn't even exist? A sense of resentment and self-pity? Any sideways glance from a passerby on the street would make me feel like they were looking at me—judging, with prejudice, with disdain.

When Uncle David stopped taking me to school, I had to learn everything myself. Waking up, making breakfast, getting myself ready, and walking to school. That was how every day went.

But every morning, when I woke up, I kept hoping that mom would return to the way she was, that she would heal from this illness—hug me, tell me she loved me. Apologize, and everything would change. Everything would go back to how it was. But the miracle never came.

We lived like this for several years. When I turned nine, my mom started feeling a bit better. Four years of constant drinking, shouting, and hysteria... But even after she stopped drinking, our relationship didn't improve. She started going out often, returning late at night, sometimes even in the early morning. There were days when she didn't come home at all. Over time, I got used to that.

If before she blamed me for all her troubles, during that time, she became cold. We simply stopped talking. We stopped even looking each other in the eye.

And yet, I was glad that she was feeling better. I kept my childish resentment inside—I had learned to do that over the years. It tormented me, but who cared? Only me, in my shattered world of dreams.

We lived like this for another four years, and when I turned thirteen, she just left. Now I think it was the best thing for her to do.

One "beautiful" day, when everything around me seemed to be blooming, my heart froze in an instant. She sat me down in front of her and quietly, emotionlessly, said:

—I'm leaving. Don't look for me. I'll send you money when I can, but I don't want you in my life. I don't want to see you. If you need help, ask your father's friend.

She wrote down his number on a scrap of paper and handed it to me.

At that moment, the ground seemed to vanish beneath my feet. I couldn't hold back my tears. I had never cried like that in my life, never screamed like that.

I begged her not to leave me. I apologized for everything: for being a bad son, for everything I had done, and even for the things I hadn't done. Literally for everything.

Throwing myself at her feet, I hugged them, pleading with her to stay. I kept saying I loved her...

But she didn't hear me.

It wasn't enough.

Her heart didn't flinch.

While I begged her to stay, her gaze remained cold. She stood there, detached, looking at me like I was a stranger, as though she didn't recognize who I was. In her eyes, I wasn't her son.

If my pleading could have been measured by energy, the waves of despair would have extinguished all the stars in the night sky.

In the end, she said only:

—You'll live alone. You'll manage. Don't forget—be quiet, very quiet. It's for our own good. There are people, evil people, who might come for you and put you somewhere you'll never get out of. Don't forget. I have to leave!

Saying these words, she pushed me away and slammed the door behind her. The sound of her heels faded with each step until it completely disappeared.

I sat for hours on the cold floor in the corner of the room, staring at the door, waiting, hoping she would come back. But it didn't happen. And I fell asleep, never having waited for her.

After that day, I thought a lot: why did she treat me like this? What kind of person leaves their son to face the world alone? What was my fault?

One day, my neighbor, my friend Raul, told me that it was probably depression—that people in such a state don't know what they're doing. But how do you explain that to a boy who just needed his mom?

The number she left was for my father's friend, Uncle David. After she left, she did send money. It wasn't enough to live on, but it helped solve some problems.

So, at five, I became an orphan with a living mother. But in reality, it happened the moment that door slammed behind her.

Her words about "strange people" and "places you can't go" planted a deep fear in me. I feared someone would come for me, and it stopped me from getting close to others. Every night, I woke up in a cold sweat, screaming. Terrifying dreams haunted me for years.

In the end, I became distrustful, and loneliness became my shadow, my other half. The fear that someone would come for me was stronger than all other emotions. It prevented me from living and finding joy.

I knew there was nowhere to run.