Prom night always has a way of turning small moments into memories that feel larger than life, but for me it began in a house where everything already felt too heavy to carry. Living with Carla meant walking on invisible glass every day, never quite sure what would trigger her next outburst, never fully able to relax in the place that was supposed to feel like home. After my mother died and my father passed away shortly after, the house stopped feeling like ours and slowly started feeling like hers, even though the money, the memories, and the foundation of it all had originally belonged to my parents for me and Noah.

The worst part wasn’t just the control over finances or the way she decided what was “necessary” and what wasn’t—it was the constant tone of dismissal, as if everything we cared about was childish, inconvenient, or undeserving of attention. So when prom season arrived and I mentioned needing a dress, I already knew the answer before she even spoke, but hearing her laugh anyway still felt like a quiet kind of rejection that settled deep under my skin.