My mother set the bag on the mattress and repeated that everything was fine, that I should stop playing the victim, that I wasn’t going to die over this, that I shouldn’t be “milking it.”
“Stop milking it.”
That’s what Sergio used to say in English on his streams.
Now my own mother was saying it to me.
When they left, I was alone with Bruno. My incision burned. It hurt to breathe. My hands trembled.
Almost without thinking, I opened Instagram.
I wrote everything. “Your brother needs your room.” “Stop playing the victim.” The mattress on the floor. The C-section.
I uploaded a photo of my still-swollen belly, the wound visible beneath the hospital gown.
I hesitated for a few seconds.
Then I remembered Sergio’s laughter on his streams. His jokes. His voice talking about me like I didn’t matter.
Something inside me broke.
And I hit post.
I thought I was alone.
I was wrong.
And the price was high.
Part 2
I slept in fragments.
Between feedings, Bruno’s crying, and the constant buzzing of my phone vibrating on the mattress, sleep never fully came. Every time I closed my eyes, something woke me up.
At six in the morning, half-asleep, I reached for my phone.
The screen took a few seconds to load.