Never once has Brent treated me like a sister.
I’ve been his key to the easy life, the reason Mom never got on him about getting a job, the reason he doesn’t need to clean up after himself.
I’m…not panicking anymore.
I’mlivid.
How could people who call mefamilytreat me likedirt? How couldcomplete strangersdo better than them without a single reason to?
“What are you talking about?” Mom says, aghast. “You’re not acting like my little girl. What has being here with these monsters done to you?”
Given me something like a sense of self worth.
“Mom, do you love me?” I ask.
“What are you talking about?” she repeats, driving home her usual tactic of making me believe I’m the crazy one. “Of course I love you.” Her voice pitches, grating against the grain of my very soul. “I held you nine months inside my body. People don’t know what love is until they hold their own child in their arms.”
“If you love me, why do you treat me so poorly?” A lump settles and sticks in my throat.
“Poorly! What haven’t I done for you, Clara? I have given you everything. Everything I could. Everything I didn’t have.” She scoffs, outraged. “What? Has being in this big fancy house made you think that you’re better than us? That I could have given you more? We didn’t have more. I’ve given youeverything.”
“You’ve taken more than you’ve ever given. I’ve been cleaning for you since I could hold a sponge.”
“This is about chores!?” She drops her silverware. “I’ve never heard something more ridiculous. You live under my roof; you help out. That’s standard, ineveryhousehold.”
“Brent has never had to help out.”
“Oh, and now this is about your brother?”
“This is abouteverything,” I croak. Tears pour down my face. “This is about never being good enough for you, no matter what I do. This is about using my free labor at every available opportunity. This is about not setting me up for success. This is about confiding in me whenever anything is bothering you and expecting me to sing your praises so you feel better when—in the moments I needed comfort—all I got wasit’s not that bad, so many have it worse, get over it. This is about silencing me. This is about using me. This is about making every conversation aboutyou.”
Silence.
Silence broken only by my oblivious brother still rambling about video games while stuffing his face.
Mom takes a breath. Mom lets it out. “Well, I guess I was just a horrible mother then.”
My entire bodysnaps, because I’ve heard that one before—countless times—and I have spent hours of my life lying to make her feel like she wasn’t. Now? Now, I’m done. I find the strength to face her. “We’re talking about me now.Enough aboutyou.” Air burns in my chest. “You don’t appreciate me. You don’t treat me with love. So now, I’m on the cusp of beingdone. But I’m giving you one last chance. Are you going to make excuses? Or are you going to take accountability? That’s the only reason you’re here, Mom. I need to hear your answer.”
Balking, Mom grips her fist. “You get in one relationship, and suddenly you know whatloveis?” Her attention shifts to Lukas. “What words are you making her say? Give me back my baby.”
I move to cut off her line of sight to him. Because—again—we are talking tome. “I’m not yours anymore. You lost the privilege of me.”
Anger explodes, and then my mother’s hand lifts.
White hot pain careens across my cheek.
Furious words scream from her chest. “I raised you better than this! Don’t you dare talk to me like that! Who do you think you are? You’re selfish! You’re ungrateful!”
All around the table, chairs skid as my brothers stand, a semicircle of threat.
Lukas’s bulk folds over my entire body and my chair falls as he rips me out of it, placing me on unsteady feet behind him. I teeter, feeling the burn across my face. Kaleb catches me in his arms. Soothing words I can barely make out tumble from his lips.
Lukas grabs my mother’s hand, and hisses, “Apologize.”
“Let go of me!”
“Mom?” Brent asks, finally dragging himself out of his own self-absorption. “Is this when I’m supposed to start recording?”
