i.

i wasn't meant to be born; my sister revealed to me that i had been a mistake, an attempt by my mother to manipulate my father into staying with her. it was an attempt that didn't work and my mother would have had an abortion, save for the rigid catholic beliefs she had been brought up with that haunted her in her decision making. then she wanted to give me away, or so says my sister, but attachment is a strange thing. you can hate something and everything it stands for and reminds you of but after nine months in the womb, that thing is a part of you. and so even though you hate it, you love it too.

i think that summed up our family's entire relationship.

my sister clara-bell, beautiful as they come and always in control, never let me forget that i was the black sheep, the one they never wanted. she was the beauty queen and i was the one watching jealously from the side, pretending not to be interested but deep down longing to be anything like she was. i was the plain jane, the one my mother would only acknowledge when she was yelling at me for something or comparing me to clara-bell. she wasn't able to give me away when i was born but i could tell that she often regretted her weakness; that life might have been simpler for her without the constant reminder of the one she lost. i looked like him, clara-bell said to me; she had a crumpled up polaroid of him she'd found in a dusty drawer that was taken only weeks before he left, and i could tell without a doubt i was his daughter. i'd never met him, but i'd stared at that photograph for so long i would recognise him instantly. after he left, my mother went back to her first love, clara-bell's father, who had never gotten over her and took her back instantly even though she was pregnant with another man's child.

my sister liked to pretend that they were the ultimate happy family and i was the street-kid they took in to make themselves feel good about doing something for the less privileged. sometimes i could believe her; the three of them looked the part, played their parts well. we were always playing a role, just that somehow my script had gotten mixed up and i was reading from a completely different page. my father was italian and i had his eyes; they say that bella is beautiful in italian but i was anything but.

sometimes late at night i would hear muffled sobbing coming from the top room; once i followed the sound only to find my mother clutching a leather bound book and a handful of photographs like the polaroid i hid under the loose floorboard in my room. i must have startled her because she looked up and whipped her head in my direction and glared at me so fiercely that i turned and ran from the room without uttering a word. we never spoke about that moment, her and i; it was, like so much of my past, an unspoken topic. all i knew was that i reminded her of him and for that, she resented me. she resented me for being so much like the only one she truly loved.

ii.

i was a rebel child, the one who would play in the mud with the boys and grew up never believing in fairytales. clara-bell believed in all things beautiful; she was a rose garden where i was a patch of weeds. but only i ever saw her thorny side, the part where she constantly reminded me that i didn't belong, that i wasn't meant to be here. the boys who hung out at the corner of the street smoking cigarettes and staying out way too late taught me how to be tough, they taught me how to fight back. i was twelve years old and running down the road with tearstains on my cheeks and the echoes of my sister's words taunting me, she'll never love you, you'll be like your father, always running away when things get too tough, how could you ever think you'll be beautiful? and the boys on their bikes caught me as i fell over my untied shoelace. they said to me, do you want us to teach her a lesson? but i was scared of clara-bell and i thought that maybe her words were true and so it wasn't her fault if she was just telling me the truth. so they said to me instead, then stick with us, we'll make sure no-one ever makes you cry again.

and they taught me how to save up the taunts and harsh words, instead of letting them break me i would wear them like a shield that strengthened me and made me gritty, angry, rebellious. i learnt how not to care, how not to take the evil words clara-bell would say to me for truth. how not to let it upset me that my mother couldn't look at me without seeing the only person who ever weakened her, how my stepfather barely spoke a word to me because he worried i would taint the whole family. i built up a wall of hatred, pain, anger.

i haven't cried since.

iii.

on sunday mornings they hide in church pews and say their vows and pray that a god will save them from their sins. i know that no-one will save me from mine; i don’t even pretend to believe. how can i believe in something when everyone tells me that my birth was a sin, that i am one too? no-one can save you, i learnt that from a young age; i refused to pretend anymore. everyone was always pretending. pretending we were happy, pretending we were a family, pretending there was a god who gave a damn. what if none of it was true? clara-bell was pretending to be the golden angel and all anyone ever saw was her halo of blonde hair and that sweet smile that charmed and seduced everyone around her. but maybe i was pretending too. maybe i was pretending i didn’t care.

iv.

adam was my favourite of all the boys who protected me; it was the next biggest secret in my heart. he knew how it felt to be unwanted; his mother had abandoned him years after he was born and he’d spent months searching for his father only to discover he was a drunk with a mistress almost as young as he was. all the boys had their weaknesses but adam really understood. not that we ever spoke of it; we didn’t need to. he could see into my eyes, he knew when i was hurting even when i refused to say the words. tough girls don’t ask for help, they don’t say when their heart aches for something they never had. my stubbornness was my life raft; without it i would drown in a pool of self-pity and loneliness, and i refused to let go of that. adam was like that too, we all were in our little group of outcasts. no-one needed to explain anything because somehow, we just knew.

adam did more than just know. he felt it too. it made me feel less alone.

v.

i was alone. they were fighting in the room next to mine; the walls were shaking but not as much as i. don’t cry don’t cry don’t cry i told myself and i tried to concentrate on tuning out their screams as i huddled beneath my quilt in the sticky summer night. they never screamed; my mother prided herself on keeping her feelings beneath the surface, and my stepfather was too in love with her and their little family masquerade to ever challenge her on anything she didn’t want to discuss. but something was wrong. in the crack beneath my door i saw the light reflecting from across the hall, from clara-bell’s room, and i knew the fight had woken her up too. she was never usually awake at 1am but the shouts were so unusual in this household.

unusual for them, but not unusual for me. the words pounded over and over again in my brain, all the time. tonight i couldn’t distinguish what was real and what was inside my head. she’s not my daughter...she doesn’t belong to me
she doesn’t belong
she doesn’t belong

i wanted to scream until my screams drowned out theirs. i could hear clara-bell’s laughter and i didn’t know if that was real either. maybe nothing was real.

maybe everything was real.

vi.

the morning sun made my head pound even more. i’d forgotten to pull the curtain across when i climbed through adam’s window the night before; he was my escapism, my elysium. he always left his window open for me so i could hide if i needed to, although i’d never had to hide from my family outwardly fighting before. somehow i liked it better when they were shouting than when they were being silent. or maybe i could say that now because the sun was out and the night was over and i was far away from their cries and harsh words thrown at each other.

he didn’t ask me what was wrong and i didn’t tell him either. he never asked me and i think i liked that best about him. at home secrets were dirty and hidden under floorboards; with adam secrets faded and almost didn’t matter. i wanted to hold onto those feelings and keep them inside of me, like secrets of the very best kind. heart songs. i was a tough girl, an angry girl, an unwanted girl, but it didn’t mean i didn’t want to be happy.

with adam, i was. almost happy. almost wanted. it was more than i could say for at home.

vii.

clara-bell was crying. the muffled sobs from her bedroom remind me of how i found my mother that night with the journal and the photographs, and i felt a surge of satisfaction that my sister was as upset as she had made me. everyone saw her as perfect but her evil words had haunted me for years; it was hard for me to have any sympathy for her. her door opened and her father, my stepfather, walked out. he brushed past me without a glance leaving the door ajar. clara-bell’s sobs echoed through the hallway and curiosity got the better of me as i approached her room.

she looked up at me, her mascara smeared in lines down her cheeks. far from being the tough older sister who repeatedly told me how unwanted i was, she was younger, vulnerable, frightened.

she looked like me before i met the boys. the me who cried because she didn’t belong.

the words from the night before echoed in my mind, the screams that awoke the house. she’s not my daughter... she doesn’t belong to me...

it wasn’t me they were talking about.

i turned and walked away from her without saying a word. i always ran away when things got too tough.

-end-