Chapter 3
Home is the sound of voices, yes, but some voices do not soothe. They command. Home is the sight of faces, but some faces do not comfort, they judge.
Home is the smell of familiar meals, but even that can turn bitter when it becomes tied to arguments, to unmet expectations, to unspoken rules that crush rather than guide.
For many, home is a place where memories are made. But for some, it is the place where fear first enters their hearts. Where they first learn that people can hurt you even when they claim to love you.
Where laughter can turn into whispers of dread, and hugs can feel like obligations rather than warmth. Home is a teacher, and sometimes, the lessons are harsh.
It is the quiet pressure at dinner tables, the invisible measuring of your value against siblings, against cousins, against friends. The unspoken expectations that your achievements must always be bigger, better, more than anyone else's.
The feeling that nothing you do will ever be enough, because the standard is set not by fairness, but by comparison, by pride, by tradition.
Home is where childhood should be nurtured, where innocence should be protected.
And yet, for some, it is the place where childhood is stolen not by strangers, but by the very hands that should have guarded it.