The Day I Erased My Mother

Just because I played video games for an hour on the computer, my mom decided I was a gaming addict. She forced me into a troubled-teen behavioral reform camp. She said, "I won't let games and the internet ruin your life. Go in there and get reformed." "Once you've changed for the better, I'll bring you home." What she didn't know was the truth. There was no redemption in that place. Only electroshock torture, brutal physical punishment, and endless "mind reprogramming." Three years later, standing outside the gates of that soul-crushing reform academy, she reached out her hand to me with tears streaming down her face. "Jesse, I know I was wrong. Please come home with me. I swear I'll never push you again." I took a step back on pure instinct. I never told her that I had found a brother in that hellhole. The first thing he taught me was simple: Never trust the people who personally drag you into hell, even when they cry and swear they love you. "I know I messed up. I'll never force you to do anything again. Just come home with me, okay?" The moment her fingers brushed against my sleeve, a familiar, bone-chilling dread shot straight up my spine. Almost instinctively, I took a swift step back, dodging her touch with practiced precision. My reaction caught her off guard. Her hand froze in midair, the expression on her face completely rigid. I just stared at her with dead eyes, looking at her as if she were a total stranger. Go home? Could that place even be called a home anymore? "Jesse, why... why are you pulling away from me?" "Did someone hurt you in there? Tell me!" She reached for me again and caught my arm. I tried to pull away, but her grip was tight. "No," I replied flatly, my voice so raspy and dry that it sounded alien even to my own ears. She seemed to breathe a sigh of relief, though her fingers tightened even more, as if she were terrified I would bolt. "That's good, that's good... I looked up so many articles online. They said places like that... aren't fit for human beings... As long as you weren't abused..." she murmured, her eyes welling with thick tears that threatened to spill over. Watching her look so relieved and heartbroken, I could only let out a mocking, bitter laugh on the inside. Mom, wasn't it you who pulled every string and paid thousands of dollars to dump me in that exact place that wasn't fit for human beings? Isn't it a little too late to care about whether I was abused now? Three years of electroshocks and beatings had taught me one undeniable truth: Tears and apologies are the cheapest things on earth. She forced a fawning smile and steered me toward her sleek, brand-new sedan parked by the curb. "You used to love gaming, didn't you? I cleaned out your room, and I even bought you the newest, highest-end gaming PC!" She tried to use my old hobbies to spark some warmth in me. "I also cooked all your favorite meals. Let's go home and celebrate your fresh start." I glanced back one last time at the bleak, gray, prison-like compound behind me. Razor wire lined the top of the concrete perimeter walls. Inside, I had met an older boy named Hank, who became like a brother to me. He was thrown in there to be "re-educated" because he refused to take over his family's corporate empire. He still had about two months left before his release. We made a pact: when that day came, I would be there to pick him up. Holding onto that promise gave me the only real anchor in my chest. Plus, there was still an old collection of game discs my dad had left me before he passed away, still stashed at the house. It was the only physical remnant tying me to the happy moments of my past. In the end, I gave up resisting. Silent and passive, I followed her into the car heading toward that so-called "home." The car glided down the highway in an awkward, suffocating silence. She kept stealing anxious glances at me in the rearview mirror. After a while, half as a gentle reminder and half as a warning, she reached over and lightly ruffled my buzzcut: "Jesse, let the past stay in the past. From now on... you can't get addicted to the internet again, okay? Take this as a lesson. You have to remember it." My hands clenched against my knees, my fingernails digging hard into my palms. Over the past three years, during the rare days we were permitted to write letters, I had written to her over and over. I told her I wasn't an addict. I told her I just liked playing games, that it was my only hobby and my only way to decompress. She had never written back once. To her, I had long been stamped with the indelible label of an addict. So now, I didn't even have the urge to explain myself. I just nodded submissively, playing the obedient child she wanted, and whispered: "I understand, Mom." A look of sheer relief washed over her face, satisfied, as if the behavioral reprogramming had genuinely worked. Pleased with herself, she accelerated down the road, driving toward the home I could never truly return to.The car pulled into our familiar yet alien suburban neighborhood. Three years had passed, and the trees had grown lusher. Yet that pale house still loomed before me like a massive tombstone. The moment the front door opened, a suffocating cloud of sweet perfume hit me, trying desperately to mask an underlying, stifling tension. Bang! The sharp crack of a party popper made me jump, my entire body locking up instantly. Lulu—the foster daughter my mother had taken in—was holding the empty tube, beaming brightly: "Jesse! Welcome home!" Her voice dripped with affectionate sweetness, her eyes practically overflowing with performative longing. It was as if she weren't the very person who, three years ago, had whispered poison into my mother's ear, claiming I had "a dead-eyed stare," that I "sat grinning like an idiot at the screen all day," and that I was "definitely in the final stages of internet addiction." I ignored her completely. Without taking off my shoes, I brushed right past her and headed straight for my old bedroom. The smile on her face froze, instantly morphing into a look of wounded hurt as she turned to my mom, her voice trembling with tears: "Mom... is Jesse still mad at me? I was only worried about his future back then..." My mom immediately wrapped an arm around her shoulders, cooing softly to console her: "Jesse just got back, Lulu. He needs time to adjust. Don't take it to heart, it's not your fault." I pushed my bedroom door open. The room had been scrubbed spotless. Fresh sheets lay on the bed, and the curtains were pulled wide. That top-tier PC setup my mom bragged about sat prominently on the desk. Its monitors were completely black, staring back at me like cold, unblinking eyes. The sight of that dark screen made my stomach churn with nausea. I walked quickly over to the bed, crouched down, and reached underneath it. Seeing the metal tin containing my dad's old game discs sitting undisturbed, I finally let out a long, shaky breath. Star Odyssey. It was the very first co-op game my dad and I had beaten together before he died. "Jesse, ready for dinner?" My mom lingered in the doorway, eyeing me cautiously. "You're so thin... you barely have any color in your cheeks. I made your favorite braised ribs." I slid the tin back under the bed in silence and followed her to the dining room. The table was packed with food. It was genuinely lavish. Lulu was already seated, sweetly ladling soup for my mom. Halfway through the meal, Lulu brought up a topic with feigned innocence, her gaze laser-focused on my reaction: "So Jesse... what was that academy really like? Is it as... terrifying as everyone says on Twitter?" My fork froze for a split second. I lowered my gaze, keeping my voice as flat as humanly possible: "Just standard. Morning runs, lectures, writing statements about what we'd supposedly done wrong." "Oh..." She dragged out the syllable, a flicker of disappointment crossing her eyes before she plastered on another sweet smile. "Sounds pretty structured. Guess it wasn't as bad as people say." "All right, Lulu," my mom cut in, placing a rib onto my plate with forced cheerfulness. She was trying to chase away the heavy cloud in the room. "Let's leave the past where it belongs. What matters is that he's back. Jesse, think of it as three years of character-building. We start fresh from here." Lulu pouted slightly and went quiet, picking at her rice. A moment later, as if remembering something crucial, she dropped her utensils, ran into her room, and emerged holding an exquisitely wrapped gift box, holding it out to me. "Jesse, I got you a special release present! Happy getting out of—I mean, welcome home!" I didn't reach for it. I didn't even look up at her. Unfazed, she giggled and tore the wrapping paper off herself. Inside lay an ostentatious mechanical keyboard. Even under the dining room chandelier, its vibrant RGB lighting elements seemed aggressively bright. My breath caught in my throat. Every drop of blood in my veins turned to ice. This keyboard was the exact model Lulu had sobbed about three years ago, claiming I had stolen her savings to buy it because of my "gaming obsession." Back then, my mother had swallowed her lies whole and beaten me black and blue. Lulu shoved the keyboard closer to my face, her smile twisting into something subtly cruel and gloating: "What's the matter, Jesse? Didn't you used to love these flashy keyboards? You loved them so much you practically 'borrowed' my money just to get your hands on one." "Now I'm giving you an even better one. Aren't you thrilled?" My fork slipped from my fingers and clattered onto the table.The garish glow of that keyboard dragged me straight back to that helpless afternoon three years ago. Lulu's shrill sobbing, my mother's blind, furious accusations... And that stupid keyboard I had coveted but never actually touched... Every memory slammed into me all at once, accompanied by the phantom agony of electric shocks, drowning me like a tidal wave. With a violent sweep of my arm, I struck the box right off the table! The keyboard hit the hardwood floor with a loud crash, plastic keycaps scattering in every direction. "What is wrong with you?!" my mother shrieked in shock. Lulu seemed genuinely startled by my outburst, freezing for a second before turning on the waterworks, looking up at my mom in utter devastation: "Mom... I just wanted to get along with him..." Staring down at the wreckage, my entire body shook uncontrollably. My face had to be stark white. "Lulu bought you a gift! She moved past what you did, and you pull this kind of psycho tantrum?!" My mom shot to her feet, her expression terrifyingly dark, her voice trembling with absolute fury. She stormed around the table, seized my arm, and yanked me toward the floor: "Pick it up! Apologize to Lulu right now!" Her touch made me violently sick to my stomach. That familiar, suffocating need to control my every breath was back. Apologize? Apologize for something I never did? Apologize for three years of being tortured in hell? The bottled-up agony, rage, and despair of three full years shattered my sanity in a single heartbeat. I wrenched my arm out of her grip with enough force to send her stumbling back. "For my own good? You sent me to that slaughterhouse for my own good?!" "You want to know why I can't stand you touching me?!" I tore open the collar of my shirt, exposing the ugly, charred burn scars clustered beneath my collarbone. "This is the wonderful place you shipped me off to! "They strapped electrodes to my temples and shocked me until I lost control of my bowels! "They forced me to clean out septic tanks with my bare hands, and if I hesitated, they shoved it into my mouth!" I heard my own voice roaring, tears of pure fury burning my eyes. "Can't you see what kind of venomous snake Lulu is?! Mom! I am your real son!" "I did it for your own good!" she shouted over me, her voice rising to a frantic pitch. Her gaze was icy, entrenched in stubborn denial. "Screen addiction ruins people! If I didn't break you of it completely, what would your future look like?! Was I supposed to just sit back and watch you rot?!" Her words ripped a gaping, freezing void straight through my chest. Growing up, sure, I played games, but I never failed a single class. I knew the difference between a screen and reality! What reason did I ever have to steal her damn money? Why was she so willing to believe the crocodile tears of an outsider over a single word of defense from her own flesh and blood? Every disappointment over the years finally hardened into a solid block of apathy. Explaining myself... what was the point anymore? Looking at her lined yet brutally authoritarian face, every drop of my fight vanished. A tear slipped down my cheek—not from sadness, but from the sickening realization of how pathetic I was for ever harboring hope. Looking at my shaved head and gaunt cheeks, her tone suddenly softened, carrying the smug exhaustion of someone who believed she had won: "Jesse, everything I do comes from love. You suffered these past three years, but I've paved your entire future for you." "Just get back to school, finish college, and my company... it'll all be yours one day. This little bump in the road is nothing." Exhausted to my core, I stepped around her without a word, walked back into my bedroom, and locked the door behind me. Outside, through the wood, I could hear Lulu's fake whimpers and my mother's soft, soothing murmurs. Late into the night, I lay flat on the mattress, staring blankly at the ceiling. I heard a key turn in the lock. The door clicked open by an inch; Lulu must have found a spare key. A silhouette paused in the frame. Once she was certain I was "asleep," Lulu slipped into the room on tiptoe. I held my breath, watching her through the darkness with cold, open eyes. She crept over to my desk and carefully tucked an object deep into the inner sleeve of my old backpack. I didn't move. I didn't make a sound. I already knew what she was doing. Was she really that desperate? The very first night I was back, and she was already recycling her old tricks. Fine by me. I closed my eyes. This time, I wanted to see it for myself. Would my mother believe the physical "evidence" planted before her eyes? Or would she finally believe the son who had just clawed his way out of hell?