Chapter 4 — Questions Without Answers

A few months later, life shifted again.

Elliot’s mother enrolled him and his siblings in a new school. It was meant to be a fresh start — new uniforms, new books, new classrooms filled with children who didn’t know their past.

She had also begun working again, this time even harder than before. Some days she worked two jobs just to keep food on the table and rent paid. Elliot could see the exhaustion in her eyes when she returned home, shoulders heavy, voice thin with fatigue.

He wanted to talk to her.

But there was never the right moment.

At school, Elliot struggled to find his place.

The classrooms were loud with laughter and friendships already forming, but he felt like a visitor who had arrived too late. He sat quietly, answering when spoken to, keeping his head down.

One afternoon, a teacher called him to her desk.

“What’s your father’s name?” she asked casually, writing in a register.

Elliot froze.

He had two answers in his mind. His real father, Henry. And the man now living with them, Stevin.

For a moment, he didn’t know which truth belonged to him.

Finally, he whispered, “Steven.”

The teacher frowned and flipped through some papers.

“But here it says your father’s name is Henry. Who is Steven?”

Elliot didn’t think before answering.

“He’s… my second father.”

The room grew quieter than it had been before.

The questions didn’t stop there. They asked about his family, his home, his religion — things Elliot had never really been asked to explain before. He answered simply, honestly, the way children do when they don’t yet understand how adults interpret words.

But as the teachers exchanged glances, he sensed something change.

He realized they weren’t just asking.

They were judging.

He heard whispers about his mother — words he didn’t fully understand, but whose tone felt sharp and heavy. One of the teachers even suggested he should follow his stepfather’s religion, insisting it would be “better” for him.

Elliot didn’t know what that meant. He barely understood religion at all. But they pushed him to learn prayers, customs, and rules that felt foreign to him.

He tried to tell his mother that evening.

He waited until she returned home, her face pale with exhaustion, hands smelling of work and dust. He stood beside her, hoping she would notice something was wrong.

But she was too tired to listen.

“I’ll hear it later,” she murmured, not unkindly — just worn down.

Later never came.

Elliot lay in bed that night feeling an ache he couldn’t name.

First his father had slipped away.

Now his mother felt distant too.

He missed the small things more than anything — the way she used to kiss his cheeks, the way her hand would rest on his head, the softness in her voice when she called his name.

Those memories felt like they belonged to another lifetime.

In just a few months, his world had turned into something he never wanted — a place where home felt quiet, school felt unsafe, and love felt like something that could disappear without warning.

And slowly, without telling anyone, Elliot decided something that would shape him for years:

He would stop talking about his family.

Some truths, he learned, were safer kept silent.

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