“Not yet,” I said, dazed. “I just… put it on social media.”
“Give it a week,” Greg murmured behind me. “You’re going to need a distributor account.”
That night, lying in bed at my grandparents’ house, my fingers still ached from the strings.
My heart ached in a different way.
It wasn’t the old ache of being forgotten.
It was the wild, tender ache of being seen.
A few days later, my mom texted.
I saw your video.
Just three words.
Then another.
It came up on my feed. I didn’t know it was you at first.
I stared at the notification.
My thumb hovered over the screen.
Part of me wanted to throw the phone into the nearest river.
Another part wanted to type a novel.
Finally, I settled on:
Yeah. That’s me.
She didn’t respond right away.
Hours passed.
I finished a shift. I wiped down tables. I walked home under a sky streaked lilac and gold.
That night, as I sat at the little desk in my grandparents’ guest room, my phone buzzed again.
Your song hurt to listen to.
I didn’t reply.
Another message.
Because it was true.
I exhaled slowly.
I’m not trying to hurt you, I typed. I’m telling my story.
I watched the typing bubble appear and disappear three times before her next response came.
I don’t know how to fix this, she wrote. But I’m trying to understand.
For the first time, instead of feeling like she was trying to drag me back into the house like a runaway suitcase, it sounded like she was standing outside of it for a second, looking in.
I didn’t forgive her in that moment.
But I did something that surprised even me.
I sent her the contact information for a family therapist my grandparents’ pastor had recommended.
If you want to work on things, I wrote, start here. With or without me.
She didn’t write back that night.
A week later, my dad called.
I almost didn’t pick up.
But something in me—a softer, less scorched part—answered.
“Hey,” he said. His voice sounded older than I remembered. “I, uh… I listened to your song.”
“Yeah?” I asked.
“I wish I could say I didn’t recognize any of it,” he said. “But I did.”
Silence stretched between us.
“I started seeing a therapist,” he added. “Your mom did too. Separately, for now. The lady said… well, she said we trained you to disappear. That hit me like a truck.”
I didn’t know what to say, so I stayed quiet.
“I’m not asking you to come home,” he said quickly, as if he knew I was already tensing. “I just wanted you to know we’re trying. I know that doesn’t erase anything. But I’m… I’m proud of you, Mia. For getting out. For making something out of what we messed up.”
Tears pricked my eyes.
“Thanks,” I said softly.
“Your grandma keeps bragging about you to everyone at church,” he added, forcing a small laugh. “And your grandpa keeps replaying that open mic video. He sent it to half his contacts. The man doesn’t even know how to text properly, but he figured it out for you.”
That made me laugh for real.
“That sounds like him,” I said.
We talked a little longer—about work, about my grandparents, about how his back hurt more these days when he tried to fix things around the house.
When we hung up, my chest felt hollow and full at the same time.
They were trying.
But I still wasn’t going back.
Not yet.
Maybe not ever.
Winter crept in slowly that year.
The café hung garlands in the windows. Someone brought in a tiny fake tree and decorated it with mismatched ornaments customers had given us. Greg played holiday playlists on low volume between the clink of cups and the hiss of the espresso machine.
One particularly slow Tuesday, he tossed a dish towel over his shoulder and leaned across the counter.
“So, rising star,” he said. “Got any plans for the holidays?”
“Working,” I said. “Saving. Eating too many cookies at my grandparents’ house.”
He smirked.
“Sounds solid,” he said. “Also, a small label emailed the café account asking how to reach you. Apparently they saw your clip too.”
I blinked.
“You’re kidding.”
“Do I look like I have the energy to joke?” he deadpanned.
He slid a printed email toward me.
They weren’t a huge label. No major city skyline in their logo. But they had real artists, real streams, real tours.
They wanted to talk. Just talk. About distribution. About maybe recording a proper version of my song.
I stared at the black-and-white letters until they stopped making sense.
“Greg,” I whispered, “what if I’m not good enough?”
“You wrote a song that made half the internet cry into their cereal,” he said. “You’re good enough.”
I didn’t give him an answer that day.
I went home, sat on the edge of the guest bed, and told my grandparents everything.
Grandpa listened with his arms crossed, his eyes shining in a way I’d never quite seen before.
Grandma clasped her hands like she was physically holding herself back from exploding with excitement.
“Do you want this?” she asked gently when I finished.
I stared at the email again.
Did I?
I thought about all the times I’d been told I was “too sensitive” or “too quiet” or “too dramatic on the inside.”
I thought about my canceled birthday, my packed bag, my first night at their house announcing, “I’m not going back.”
I thought about how it felt to be on that stage, to have a room full of strangers singing my chorus back to me under their breath.
“Yeah,” I said slowly. “I think I do.”
Grandpa grinned.
“Then we’ll help you,” he said simply. “Whatever you need.”
We set up a call with the label the following week.
I joined from the tiny dining room table, my laptop propped on a stack of cookbooks for a better angle. Greg sat in, too, off-camera but within earshot in case I needed backup.
We talked about contracts and streams and creative control. I asked more questions than I thought I was allowed to ask.
At the end of the call, the woman on the other side of the screen smiled.
“Whatever you decide,” she said, “you have something people need to hear. Don’t let anyone make you smaller than that.”
She didn’t know it, but those words echoed right alongside Grandpa’s and Greg’s and every comment under my videos.
Don’t let anyone make you smaller.
I didn’t sign anything right away.
I told them I needed time.
Because for once, I wanted to make a decision that wasn’t out of panic or fear or desperation.
I wanted to choose my future the way someone chooses a song to play on purpose.
Around that same time, my mom asked for a second meeting.
Not at the house.
At the therapist’s office.
I wrestled with it for days.
Part of me wanted to ignore the message and keep moving forward without looking back.
Another part of me—the one that had written a hundred songs about the ache of wanting a mother—whispered that maybe I owed it to myself, not to her, to see if change was possible.
In the end, I said yes.
The day of the session, I sat in the therapist’s waiting room, twisting my fingers together.
The walls were painted a calming blue. A fake plant sat in the corner. A sound machine hummed softly, drowning out street noise.
My mom walked in a few minutes later.
She looked smaller somehow.
Not in a physical way. In the way someone looks when they’ve been carrying a truth around for too long and it’s finally starting to show.
“Hi,” she said.
“Hi,” I replied.
We sat on opposite sides of the room until the therapist—a calm woman with kind eyes—opened the door and invited us in.
What happened in that room wasn’t magic.
She didn’t suddenly become the mother I always wanted.
I didn’t suddenly stop being hurt.
