I Screamed I Wanted My Mom Back — My Dad’s Response Broke Me

For illustrative purposes only

But when I turned sixteen, everything felt heavier. I was angry at everything and everyone, especially him. One night, during a stupid argument about my curfew, I snapped. I screamed words I didn’t mean, words that cut deep the moment they left my mouth: “I wish mom had taken me with her!”

He didn’t yell back. He just went quiet—so quiet it scared me. He looked at me with this expression I’d never seen before, like he’d been hit in a place he thought had already healed.

Two weeks later, I came home from school and froze in the doorway. Sitting on the couch, awkward and out of place, was my mom. The woman I had spent years imagining, missing, resenting. My dad stood beside her, hands in his pockets.

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