At twenty-five, I have a decent job, study part-time, and cautiously build my own life. I work as an assistant to the director at a major logistics firm in Manchester. On the surface, everything’s fine, but my heart aches because home no longer feels like home. And Mum—the woman I’d known my whole life—has vanished.
She raised me alone. My father was never in the picture—just a blank space on my birth certificate, a shadow in her memories. We were like best friends. Sure, there were rough patches—I was a difficult teenager, slamming doors, picking fights—but Mum always knew how to reach me. She listened. She loved. Even in the darkest moments, she was my safe harbour.
A few years ago, I moved out, renting a room, living independently. But a year ago, everything crumbled—a difficult surgery, a painful breakup, my spirit in pieces. Of course, Mum took me back. I returned to her flat, the same one where I’d always felt protected. But I didn’t come home to the same place.
It started five years ago when Mum first mentioned Simon. A colleague, older, respectable. But married. I was wary, but Mum, like a lovesick schoolgirl, swore, “His marriage has been over for years.” They kept seeing each other. Then he left his wife and moved in with us. A year later, they married.
The wedding was small, just family. I smiled, gave flowers, tried to be happy. But from that moment, Mum began fading—dissolving into someone else. Her voice grew colder, her mannerisms borrowed. She started echoing him—phrases, opinions, then outright disapproval. My clothes, my boyfriend, my choices. “He’s a waste of time,” she’d snipe. “You’ll never make anything of yourself.” Yet two years before, she’d held me as I sobbed over heartbreak.
The worst part? The drinking. Every evening, I’d come home to find them at the table, a bottle between them. Glasses clinking, laughter harsh and mocking. They spoke as if I were an intruder. Sometimes, in a drunken rage, she’d hiss that I was “temporary.” That the flat was hers, and if I didn’t like it, the door was open.
I tried to talk to her—calmly, desperately. *Wake up. This isn’t you.* She’d brush me off, retreat, roll her eyes. “You’re just jealous because your life’s a mess.”
We’ve lost each other. Not with a bang, but a slow, silent unraveling—two roads drifting apart, never to meet again.
Now, I stand on the brink of a new life. My boyfriend’s proposed; we’re flat-hunting. I should be happy, but my heart aches. How do I leave Mum with this man who’s poisoning her? She was never cruel, never callous. Now, she’s both.
To leave feels like betrayal. To stay is to betray myself. And I don’t know how to live with that choice.
