The day after I laid my parents to rest, I was forced to grow up. Not because I turned eighteen, but because someone tried to take away the only person I had left in the world. And I wasn’t about to let that happen.
At 18, I never imagined I’d be thrown into the darkest chapter of my life—burying both my parents and becoming the only guardian for my six-year-old brother, Max, who still believed Mom was just away on a trip.
To make it even worse, the funeral landed on my birthday.
People kept saying “Happy 18th” like it mattered.
It didn’t.
I didn’t care about cake or presents. I just wanted Max to stop asking, “When’s Mommy coming back?”
Still dressed in black, I knelt at the grave and made him a promise: “No one’s taking you from me. Not ever.”
But not everyone supported that vow.
“It’s for the best, Ryan,” Aunt Diane said, with syrupy sympathy, handing me cocoa I never asked for. She and Uncle Gary invited us over a week after the funeral. We sat at their spotless kitchen table while Max played quietly with his dinosaur stickers. They stared at me with matching expressions of false concern.
“You’re still just a kid,” Diane said, resting her hand on my arm like we were close. “You don’t have a steady job. You’re in school. Max needs structure. He needs a real home.”
“A proper one,” Uncle Gary chimed in like they were reading from a script.
I bit the inside of my cheek so hard I tasted blood. These were the same people who forgot Max’s birthday for three straight years. The same ones who skipped every holiday gathering for “vacations.”
And now, suddenly, they wanted to be parents?
The very next morning, I found out they’d filed for custody. That’s when it clicked—this wasn’t compassion.
It was calculated.
I could feel it: Diane didn’t want Max out of love.
She wanted something else.
And I was about to figure out exactly what.
The day after their court filing, I walked into the college office and dropped out. The counselor asked if I was sure. I didn’t even wait for her to finish. School could wait. Max couldn’t.
I picked up two jobs. By day, I delivered takeout with a forced smile no matter how rude the customers. At night, I scrubbed law offices—fitting, considering I was preparing for my own court battle.
We couldn’t stay in our old house—it was too expensive. So Max and I moved into a tiny studio that reeked of floor cleaner and old food. Our mattress touched one wall; the futon touched the other. But still, Max grinned.
“This place is tiny but warm,” he said one night, wrapped like a burrito in a blanket. “It smells like pizza… and home.”
Those words nearly shattered me.
But they also kept me going.