I Was 16. I Had a Part in the Show. My Mom Was in the ICU.

The memory isn’t a story.
It’s a scar.

It’s a smell.
It’s fluorescent light.
It’s my uncle’s voice in the school office, telling me there’s been an accident and we have to go now.

I don’t remember what I was wearing.
I don’t remember what I said.

I just remember Pop Concert was that night.
And I had a part in the show.

At my high school, Pop Concert was the closest thing we had to Broadway. One night only. Choir kids became pop stars. Lights, costume changes, full-blown choreography. It was the biggest stage of our year.

I was sixteen.
I was a junior.
I had a solo.
I had responsibilities.

And my mom?
She was in the ICU with machines breathing for her. A sudden medical crisis. The kind of thing you don’t even know how to feel yet, because your brain is still buffering. Still saying things like “maybe it’s not that bad” even as your family’s faces are white and no one’s making eye contact.

I went to the hospital.
I held her hand.

I smiled for the family.
Said the right things.
Then I left.

Because I had a show to do.

I showed up at the theater, went through the motions like a fucking robot. Nodded at friends. Smiled at the director. Did my warm-ups. Took my place backstage.

And somewhere in the middle of it all—during the performance of “Girls Just Wanna Have Fun”—I couldn’t do it anymore.

I snuck out. Climbed to the balcony. Hid in the shadows.

And I broke.

I watched my classmates in sequins and eyeliner and side ponytails bounce around stage belting out “Some boys take a beautiful girl…” and I was shaking with sobs in the dark, trying not to make a sound.

Not for the performance. Not for the audience.
But because I didn’t want anyone to see.

Not the pain.
Not the fear.
Not the guilt.

Because I’d chosen the show.

And part of me has never forgiven myself for that.

To this day, I can’t hear “Girls Just Wanna Have Fun” without that moment punching me in the chest. I hear the synth line and I’m right back there—16, in the shadows, crying over the possibility that my mom might die while I’m singing a Cyndi Lauper cover in matching jeans and a borrowed jacket.

Everyone talks about trauma in hushed tones.
Hospitals. Funerals. Empty chairs at the table.

But sometimes trauma is loud.
Sometimes trauma has backup dancers.
Sometimes trauma smells like hairspray and sounds like laughter and looks like a high school auditorium full of kids pretending the world isn’t ending.

And sometimes, you’re the one pretending.

Because if you stop, even for a second, it all caves in.

I made it through the show.
I went back to the hospital.
She didn’t die that night.

But something did.

A certain kind of innocence.
A certain kind of joy.

And for the rest of my life, “Girls Just Wanna Have Fun” will always be the sound of a boy losing his mother in slow motion—and not being allowed to fall apart.