On My 18th Birthday, My Parents Drove Me to the Ai…

Expectation had always been dangerous in our house. Hope, if you let it live too long, became a kind of self-harm. Still, some childish part of me had stayed awake under the covers the night before, staring at the dark ceiling and thinking, Maybe this year.

Maybe eighteen would matter. Maybe my mother would knock on my door with a smile that reached her eyes. Maybe there would be pancakes, or a card, or even just the simple softness of hearing someone say, Happy birthday, Adella, like my existence was not a burden they had grown tired of carrying.

Instead, my door opened at six in the morning, and my mother stood in the hallway already dressed. “Pack a bag,” she said. I sat up, hair tangled around my face.

“What?”

“Just enough for a few days.”