Too Late, Mom

The cops called my family to inform them of my death, but they shrugged it off. They assumed the cops were calling for something trivial. My parents and my brother weren't affected at all.

The tourist spot was jam-packed, but they looked happy taking photos, checking in, and enjoying the local food.

My spirit hovered in the air, watching those who were supposed to be my family going about enjoying life. My heart panged, but I couldn't cry. The tears wouldn't come. I was already used to situations like these.

I came to this new home when I was six, and my mother's hatred for me only grew stronger since then.

When I was born, a seer told my mother I was cursed. She believed him and abandoned me in a small town. They only took me home when I turned six.

My father noticed my constant low mood, so he grabbed my sister and me and took us for a ride. My mother told him not to spoil me. She said that I'd grow up a menace to society if I didn't keep my temper in check.

My father ignored her and happily took my sister and me for a ride.

Alas, he drove while he was tired, and the car crash killed him and my sister. They were the ones who loved me the most. I was the only survivor of that car accident.

My father and my sister's bodies lay in the cold, cold morgue. I stood beside them, still ignorant of what death meant. Still, it didn't take me long to realize my mother was glaring at me with hatred, pain, and something close to madness in her eyes.

"Why? Why wasn't it you?"

That same question has plagued me ever since. I couldn't help but wonder whether I'd feel as sad if I were the one who had died instead.

My mother forbade me from approaching my father and sister. She shivered, cried, and shoved me away every time I tried to get close.

I was no longer her son from that moment onward. Rather, I was the murderer of her husband and daughter, a creature that had destroyed her family.

She was on the verge of a mental breakdown. The devastated and unhinged look she shot me made me shiver in fear. I didn't have the courage to approach her. So, I pushed myself up from the ground as hard as I could, only for my wound to tear open.

Tears and blood fused into a small stream, and the crimson liquid trickled to the ground.

Perhaps that was when my mother's hatred for me truly grew.

Our relatives showed up for the funeral. I vaguely heard my grandmother asking my mother how she expected to remarry if she still had deadweight following her around.

My grandmother didn't think much of my father, and she extended that disdain to me. She never responded to me, no matter how many times I called her.

My mother had no answer for the question. I was now an unwanted liability, someone that no one wanted around.

My mother's brother was the one who came and held my hand. "You'll stay with me from now on, Jonah."

I was about to say yes when my grandmother interrupted, "You jinx! You killed your father and sister, and now you want to curse my son?"

I stood frozen in my spot. Then, I hastily shook my head. No, that wasn't it! I would never.

My uncle insisted on taking me, and I stayed under his roof for three years. During my second year living under his roof, he informed me that my mother had found a new family. After that, he even tried to comfort me.

I nodded quietly, but I didn't notice the redness in the edges of his eyes.

My mother's new husband was a locally famous, rich upstart. It was to absolutely no one's surprise that my grandmother had a hand in that marriage happening.

Two years later, my mother took me into her new family. I had wrongly assumed that her hatred for me had faded away.