The nights were the hardest. That was when the silence in my home became deafening and the crushing weight of blame made it impossible to breathe. I blamed myself for uprooting my life, for moving to a new town, and for every instance where I told myself that my sixteen-year-old daughter, Angelica, was simply growing up and needed more space. I wanted to be the kind of mother who trusted her, but that trust became the very thing that haunted me after she was gone.
The phone call arrived while I was in the middle of a mundane evening task, reheating soup on the stove. The officer on the other end spoke with a flat, clinical tone, reciting an address that would forever change the trajectory of my existence. I left the soup simmering and drove to the scene, my mind desperately trying to reject the reality unfolding before me. When I arrived, the flashing blue lights illuminated the wet pavement, casting long, distorted shadows. I saw her bicycle twisted near the curb, a jagged piece of metal that seemed to mock the normalcy of the morning. Standing nearby were her friends, their faces drained of color, their bodies trembling with a shock that mirrored my own. One boy kept repeating the same frantic mantra, apologizing over and over, insisting that they had tried to do something, anything, to prevent the tragedy.
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