ASHAMED

RUBY JUNE.

Once the party was over and the guests were already leaving, one of them approached me. “Your mom wants to see you,” she said, then slipped away into the night.

Her words hit me like a splash of ice-cold water. I knew this moment was inevitable, but I had hoped to avoid it, clinging to the fragile hope that she would take her meds and drift off to sleep, forgetting about me entirely. But fate wasn’t so kind.

“I will be back,” I told Charles, my voice steady despite the storm brewing inside me.

I knocked gently on her door, the sound barely audible, then stepped inside. When I entered, I saw Kyle, my younger brother, helping Mom adjust the pillows behind her back.

“Kyle? You are back,” I said suprised.

Kyle was the light of our family, born after Mom remarried my stepfather. He……