Chapter 22
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Yours.
Lukas
If meeting the scum of the earth on Saturday wasn’t enough to infuriate me for the rest of all time, reading Clara’s trauma rainbow is doing the trick.
Heavy breaths rake through my lungs as I turn the adorable pages littered with little pictures and stickers and glitter.
Sunday, Clara baked. So much. I’m still trying to figure out who we can pass the majority of the treats out to so nothing spoils. Silent and still, she mixed batters, kneaded dough, frosted cookies, and sat on the floor—holding back tears while waiting for the oven timers to go off.
Monday, I couldn’t bear another day of her wearing herself thin in the kitchen, so I lured her to the store and bought her the brush pens she held up for me beneath pleading eyes.
Today, Tuesday, she has me on my stomach while she uses her new pens to color in the dragon looped around my waist to my back. The cold strokes inspire ecstasy, but the pages in front of me boil my blood.
I know it’s good for children to help around the house. I do. I don’t mind helping. I don’t even mind doing everything, but when my everything isn’t good enough, when instead of “thank you,” I get shown the spots I’ve missed, it wears me out.
I don’t understand why I get yelled at for failing to do what’s expected of me fast enough when the same expectations gain no consequences for anyone else even if they’re ignored completely.
Why is it my job to pick up after three adults?
I wish I were as strong as Morana. She doesn’t even pick up after Lukas when it’s her literal job to handle the housework here. She makes him put his clothes in the hamper, or she doesn’t wash them.
In contrast, I get reprimanded after doing everyone’s laundry because I’ve folded the shirts incorrectly, and I’m supposed to know how my father wants them folded, even though no one has shown me how that is.
I’m exhausted.
This isn’t right. This can’t be right.
No one can be thiswrongwhen they’re trying this hard to be right. All the time.
I want to be confident and graceful like Crimson.
I want to be talented like Maelin.
I want to embody chaos like Crisis.
I want to find the strength to speak my mind like Morana.
But, most of all, I want to love without fearing my love will be taken for granted.
I want to communicate effectively and feel heard, appreciated, worthy of compromise and respect.
I want to besafe.
Is that really so much to ask for?
No. It isn’t. That is the bottom line. The most basic human right.
Heart aching and furious, I turn the page.
Lukas loves me.
Breath escapes my lungs.
Lukas makes loving me seem so easy.
