Mom, Dad, I Don't Want Treatment Anymore

At the memorial ceremony marking the third anniversary of my brother’s death,

I got into an argument with my parents.

My father, furious, slapped me.

My mother wept hysterically and screamed at me,

“Why couldn’t it have been you who died?”

I stood frozen, not knowing what to do.

Later,

they got their wish and adopted a boy whose eyes and brows looked a lot like my brother’s,

and I, too, did as they wanted,