Chapter 1: Eggshells and Sunrise
Ever since I was small enough to hide in the gap between my bedroom wall and the closet, i had this strange, quiet instinct.
It wasn’t something anyone told me. If you walked through my front door back then, nothing about my house suggested a bright future. It was just a normal house in a normal neighborhood, but inside, the air was always heavy with the kind of dysfunction you couldn't see from the street,screaming matches over nothing, cold silences that lasted for weeks, and the unpredictable moods of adults who never learned how to handle their own mess.
When i was eight, i used to sit on the floor of my room with my knees pulled up to my chest, listening to the walls shake downstairs.
My mother would tell me, with a bitter laugh and a tired shake of her head, "This is just how families are. You take the hits, you shut your mouth, and you deal with it. Life isn't a fairy tale."
I would nod, keeping my head down like i was supposed to. But inside, a small, stubborn voice always whispered back: No. Not my life.
I couldn't say it out loud. In a family where any sign of stepping out of line caused an explosion, having big ideas made you a target. So i learned to keep it hidden under my ribs.
I felt it when i walked home from school, taking the long way just to stay out of the house a little longer. I felt it when i watched other families on the street,the way some parents actually listened when their kids spoke, or how quiet a home could be when people weren't walking on eggshells. Most of all, i felt it at dawn, sitting by my window before anyone else woke up, watching the morning sun slowly burn away the night.
Now, years later, i am a young woman living in that exact same house, trapped in the same toxic cycle.
To anyone looking from the outside, i was just an average girl living an average life. But inside those four walls, every day was a battle of survival
avoiding the chaos, absorbing the guilt, and trying not to let my family’s drama drag me down into the dirt with them.
Every time i tried to make a move to leave or build a life of my own, the invisible ropes of family obligation and manipulation pulled me right back in.
Yet, as i stood by my window this morning, watching the cold morning sky slowly fill with golden light, that same childhood feeling flared up,louder than the yelling downstairs ever was.
It was a quiet, unshakeable expectation. I didn't have all the answers yet, and i know breaking away from my family was going to be ugly. But as the sun broke over the horizon, i knew one thing for certain: their dysfunction was their story, not mine . I am going to get out.
