“Oh.”

Clear as a bell, knocking the wind out of something in my throat, a heavy glob of my breath pulling down from somewhere above, dripping like honey from a spoon into a mug of hot tea. A shape-shifting matter of dullness echoes the pounding of my heart, making my stomach spiral into a whirlpool of a black hole. The world plays like a movie that forgot that I was in it, sound warbling and my vision buzzing with hotness. 

What did I do wrong? I tried, didn’t I? 

“Mama, it’s fine,” I plead, with desperation that mangles and tears through the axis of my spine, my throat and chest straining like strings of a rope being stretched apart. “Everyone else did bad, I wasn’t the only one!”

She looks at me, her marbled eyes drowning with disappointment, her face a sculpture of carved granite, no words parting her sealed lips.

“I tried, mama.”

I tried so hard.