I came home from school.
The TV was off, the lamp in the living room glowed yellow, and Mom was sitting on the couch with her hands over her face.
She wasn’t crying like kids do – loud and messy. Just quietly. But her eyes were wet.
I tiptoed closer.
”Mom?” I whispered. “Are you crying?”
She flinched, quickly wiped her eyes, and smiled.
”It’s nothing, sweetheart. I’m just a little tired.”
Nothing? That “nothing”… sounded a lot like “I don’t want to tell you.”
“But… grown-ups don’t cry, right?” I said. “Only kids do, when they fall or get hurt.”
Mom gave a sad little laugh.
”Oh, honey. Grown-ups cry too. Sometimes the reasons are just… invisible.”
“For real?” I asked.
”For real,” Mom said. “Sometimes you cry, not because something hurts on the outside… but because something hurts on the inside.”
Then she hugged me, tightly and for a long time.
I didn’t say anything else. I just thought that maybe, sometimes, grown-ups need a hug too.
Just like us.
But then I remembered something strange…
Grown-ups always say: “Stop crying, nothing happened!”
And yet… they cry in secret, when they think no one’s watching.
Maybe crying is like chocolate.
They say you shouldn’t have too much, but then they sneak one more piece anyway.
And we, the kids… we just eat it when we want to.
Maybe crying is the same.
“For real?” I whispered once more, but this time to myself.
And I promised that when I grow up, I’ll let myself cry.
Freely. Without hiding.
Just like I eat my chocolate.