Chapter 2: When Her Eyes saw me Break

Karmen’s mother temporarily stays with family due to unbelievable living environment.

Karmen's Point of View

I don't remember the words spoken that day—only the sound of something inside my mother cracking.
Even before I understood language, I understood her.

I understood the way her arms tightened around me, the way her breath became uneven, the way the room felt suddenly colder. I understood something important had changed, and whatever it was...it hurt her.

I was still so little then—just a baby with wide eyes, watching the world from the safety of her chest. But even babies can sense heartbreak. Even babies can feel when the person who keeps them alive suddenly struggles to breathe through their pain.

Mama had just found out the truth about my father.

She had believed in him.
Believed in their little family.
Believed that maybe, just maybe, she wouldn't have to do all of this alone.

But the truth hit like a blunt force, stealing the air out of the room. There was another woman—someone from his past, someone he wasn't done with, someone he had run back to while Mama was at home feeding me, rocking me, promising me she would always keep us together.

When she learned the truth, I felt her whole world tilt.

She sat on the edge of the bed in the quiet apartment, holding me close, her tears dripping onto my tiny hands. I remember the way her heartbeat thudded hard and fast beneath my cheek. I couldn't name the emotion then, but I know it now:

Betrayal.
Abandonment.
Shame.
Rage.
Fear.
All at once.

She didn't scream. She didn't break anything. She just held me like I was the only anchor she had left in a storm she never saw coming.

And I was.

Even if I didn't know it yet, I was the reason she stayed upright when she wanted to collapse.
I was the reason she kept breathing instead of letting the grief swallow her whole.
I was the reason she wiped her tears, kissed my forehead, and whispered, "You deserve better. You both deserve better."

But heartbreak doesn't disappear just because someone is strong.

Mama tried to move around the apartment like nothing was wrong—like she was fine, like she could handle the weight of being lied to, used, forgotten. But her hands trembled. Her voice broke without warning. Her eyes were red and tired in ways no mother in her early twenties should ever have known.

Some nights she cried quietly, trying not to wake me.
Some nights she held me through her tears, because holding me was the only thing that soothed her.

And some nights, she stared at the door like she was waiting for him to walk through it, even though she already knew he wasn't coming.

This was the first time I saw her break.

Not because she was weak, but because she loved deeply.
Because she had given him the beginning of our family and he had thrown it away.
Because she believed I should grow up in a home where two people were committed...
but instead, she got stuck loving someone who only showed up halfway.

I didn't know how to save her then.
I didn't know words or comfort or understanding.

But I did the only thing a baby knows how to do—
I curled into her chest.
I breathed with her.
I let her hold me as tightly as she needed.
And in that tiny apartment, with bare walls and borrowed hope, we learned something important:

He broke her,
but he did not break us.

We were still here.
Still together.
Still intertwined.

And even if she didn't feel strong...
even if she didn't feel enough...
her love never faltered.
Not once.

This was the moment we began surviving together.
Just me and her,
in a world that kept trying to take pieces of her away.

But Mama held on to me—and I held on to her.