“She’s Just Overreacting”
I brought it up again at dinner.
“I think we should take her to a doctor,” I said carefully.
Her father sighed, the kind of sigh that carries dismissal more than concern. “For what? A stomach ache? Kids exaggerate, you know that.”
“She’s not exaggerating,” I insisted. “She doesn’t complain like this.”
He shrugged. “Maybe it’s stress. School, friends… hormones. It’s normal.”
Normal.
That word echoed in my mind long after the conversation ended.
Because nothing about this felt normal.
A Mother’s Unease
There’s a particular kind of fear that lives inside a mother—the kind that doesn’t come from evidence, but from instinct. It’s quiet, persistent, and impossible to ignore once it takes hold.
That fear had settled in my chest.
I began watching Leila more closely.
I noticed how she winced when she thought no one was looking.
How she pressed her hand to the same spot on her stomach, over and over again.
How she would pause mid-step, just for a second, as if the world had tilted beneath her feet.
And then there was the fatigue.
Not the kind that comes from staying up late or studying too hard—but a deep, bone-heavy exhaustion that seemed to drain the life out of her.
One afternoon, I found her asleep on the couch, her breathing shallow, her face unusually pale.
I touched her forehead.
Cold.
Not feverish. Not warm. Just… cold.
That was the moment something inside me shifted from concern to alarm.
