-Kyle Vale:
The moment my mom's voice breaks through the phone line, I feel my entire world shift.
Not gradually.
Not slowly.
Instantly.
Her crying hits first—sharp, uneven, like she can't even form full breaths between words—and my smile just… disappears.
Completely.
It doesn't fade.
It vanishes like it was never there in the first place.
And before I even understand what I'm hearing, my body already knows something is wrong.
Then she says it.
My dad.
Attack.
And everything inside me just collapses at once.
I don't even think I fully process the sentence properly at first. It's like my brain hears the words but refuses to connect them into meaning, like if I don't let them become real, then maybe they won't be real at all.
But my chest already knows.
My lungs tighten so fast I can barely breathe.
My father.
The word alone feels heavy in a way nothing else does.
