Daily Flash Fiction Challenge

Pretend I’m Not Here

“Pretend I’m not here,” I mumble, frozen in the doorway, clutching my mug like it might make me invisible.

Mom stands at the sink, Dad at the counter. The space between them feels like a fault line. She’s wiping a plate already clean; he’s pretending to check his phone. The air hums with things unsaid.

“I was just—” I gesture toward the coffee pot. My voice sounds wrong, too bright, a laugh in a church.

Mom doesn’t look up. “You heard.”

It isn’t a question.

Dad sets his phone down carefully, screen first, the way you’d cover a wound. “We were going to tell you after the holidays,” he says. His voice is soft, but the kind that bruises deeper than shouting.

The clock ticks once, loud enough to fill the room.

“Oh,” I say, because there’s nothing else. I wish I could unhear it, unsee the way her shoulders fold.

Mom turns, eyes glassy. “It’s not your fault.”

I nod, though I’m not sure whose fault she means — theirs, mine, or the kind that belongs to no one.

The mug’s gone cold in my hands. I back out slowly, trying to make it look casual. My throat burns with the silence.

In the hallway mirror, I catch my reflection — small, blurred, pretending too.

Word count- 245