I Had to Be Crueler Than My Family to Finally Be Free

The front door swung open, and my brother Derek Finch walked in holding his girlfriend's hand. My mother moved with lightning speed, shoving me aside and positioning herself to block me from view. She put on a bright smile. "Oh, you're back! Derek, why don't you take Tessa to the room to rest? It's so late already, and we've got visits to make tomorrow for New Year's Day." Derek knew exactly what was going on. He hurried his girlfriend into the bedroom without a word. My mother jabbed a finger against my forehead, her voice dripping with contempt. "This discussion is over. Stop making trouble. And don't you dare embarrass us in front of guests." I stared at them. I stared at the room they'd promised was mine, all those pretty words they'd spun about it. It was laughable, really. I was an idiot. A fool. After all these years, some small, stubborn part of me still clung to the hope that they meant what they said. The truth was, everything they'd ever promised had one purpose: to get me to spend my money furnishing the place. And I'd fallen for it. I'd actually believed we'd turned a corner. That we were finally becoming the loving, harmonious family I'd always wanted. I was always doing that. Trying to heal my childhood by living inside a fantasy. Playing a role inside a lie. In front of other people, I'd describe my family as close-knit, warm. I'd paint myself as the cherished youngest daughter, the little princess raised in the palm of everyone's hand. Sometimes, when you tell a lie enough times, you start to believe it yourself. I couldn't tell what was real anymore. But my father's slap had dragged me back to reality with brutal force. How could I have forgotten? I was the extra child. The one born outside the policy. My father paid the five-thousand-dollar fine to keep me, and even that was only because losing me would have been too embarrassing. The policy required him to get a vasectomy afterward. He blamed me for his declining health. Said it was the surgery. Said it was because of me. He still kept the receipt for that fine. He'd pull it out every now and then, a reminder that everything hard about our lives was my fault. If only they'd had that five thousand dollars. If only I hadn't been born. Growing up, I shared everything with my older sister. Her bed, her space. Her hand-me-down clothes became mine. I was the family's buy-two-get-one-free deal. The freebie that came with a phone top-up. As a child, I was chubby. To save money, my mother gave me her own underwear to wear. When I hit puberty, no one paid attention. I had no choice but to steal my sister's bras. They never fit. The bands dug into my skin, leaving angry red welts every single day. Years of wearing the wrong size left permanent damage. My body still carried the evidence. When I got my first period, I didn't dare tell anyone. For a long time, I wadded up toilet paper and used that instead. When my sister came home on breaks, I'd sneak her pads. She caught me once and called me disgusting. Said I was too young to be using them, that only loose girls did that. And then there was my father, coming home from his construction jobs once a year. He always brought gifts. New clothes and toys for my brother and sister. I'd stand on the bed and watch, silent, empty-handed. Even my aunt couldn't stand it. "Why didn't you get anything for the youngest?" The answer was always the same: "Your sister's things are your things." Then my sister got married and moved out. I thought the room would finally be mine. Just mine. Instead, they filled it with junk. Storage boxes, old furniture, bags of things that had nowhere else to go. They walked in and out whenever they pleased, as if my privacy didn't exist. As if I didn't exist. I remembered one time the wind blew the door shut and the lock caught by accident. My father stood outside, and in front of the relatives who'd come to help pry it open, he said every vile thing a person could say. Words I could never bring myself to repeat. I don't think any father should ever call his daughter a whore. Should ever tell her she might as well die in there. But mine did. During the most vulnerable years of my girlhood, he said those words to me. In this house, nothing had ever belonged to me. Not even myself.

If only I'd been born a boy. That thought had followed me around since I was little. My eyes stung with the weight of old memories. How could I have let myself walk such a long road, swallowing so much pain along the way? Why had I sacrificed my own happiness just so the rest of them could live theirs? The truth was, I'd never once loved myself properly. Alexis, the only person in this world who will ever truly love you is you. As long as I was happy, I didn't care who suffered. Not anymore. I marched straight to my bedroom door and shoved it open. The two of them were still inside, laughing and carrying on like the room belonged to them. My future sister-in-law looked me up and down. She didn't particularly like me either. Part of it was first impressions, part of it was whatever poison Derek and the others had dripped into her ear. "Sorry to interrupt, but everything in this room was bought with my money. I need you both to leave." That single sentence dropped the entire house into the kind of silence where you could hear a pin hit the floor. Carrie was the first to move. She grabbed my arm and yanked me hard. "What the hell is wrong with you?" I gave her one cold look, then shoved her away with everything I had. She stumbled, lost her footing, and hit the ground. It was almost funny. "You don't get a say in what happens with this room. Get out." The dream had gone on long enough. It was time for everyone to wake up. "You're the one who needs to get out!" My mother seized a fistful of my hair. "I warned you not to start trouble in this house, Alexis." My father reached over and slammed the door shut. The pain ripping through my scalp made me bare my teeth. The second my mother let go, my father grabbed a teacup and hurled it at me. "I'll beat the life out of you! I'm still standing right here! I'm the one whose name is on this house, and you have the nerve to say that?!" My mother was seething. "Can't you see your sister-in-law is visiting for the first time? How did I give birth to something like you!" "Maybe you two just couldn't keep your hands off each other." My mockery left them speechless for a split second. It was the kind of remark that dragged something ugly out from under the rug, something none of them wanted exposed. Their faces turned scarlet. "I'll kill you! I swear I'll kill you!" Carrie, afraid our father's hands alone wouldn't be enough, ran to the bathroom and came back with a mop handle. "Dad, teach this thing a lesson! Every single day her brain gets worse. I don't know if she's sick or what!" "We told you to focus on school, and you didn't! Listen to yourself! Listen to what's coming out of your mouth! Only someone as uneducated as you could say something so disgusting! Look at yourself!" School? I almost laughed. It really was hilarious. When Carrie got into community college, our parents scraped together every last penny to send her. Derek went straight to vocational school, no questions asked. I got accepted to a four-year university. They decided it was pointless. They took my acceptance letter and locked it away. Once the enrollment deadline passed, they sent me to work. A low laugh escaped me. It grew louder and louder. Then, all at once, my expression went cold. "How dare you say that to me." "You've lost your mind, haven't you?! Tonight I'm dragging you to a psych ward!" My father swung the mop handle into me without a shred of hesitation. Just like every other time when I was little. Derek would go out and do something wrong, then come home and pin it on me. Our parents would beat me right in front of whoever had complained, beat me so badly that even the other person felt guilty and told them to stop. I was supposed to keep taking it. Silently. That was the price of keeping this family looking happy and whole on the outside. The price of maintaining any relationship with them at all. Not a single person had ever spoken up for me. Not one. Even Tessa, the newest addition to this family, had already chosen their side.

I was tired. I didn't want to keep holding together this hollow existence anymore. "Am I the crazy one? You're the crazy ones! All of you!" I screamed at them like a madwoman, my voice tearing itself raw. "Why did you even have me? Why! If you never loved me, why did you bring me into this world!" My finger jabbed toward them. "Why did they get everything growing up while I got nothing? Why was I stripped of the right to even have my own room!" My fist pounded against my own chest, my voice shredding to nothing. "I'm your daughter too! Why!" My outburst only made my mother snort with laughter. Whether she was worried things would get ugly enough for the neighbors to gossip, or for some other reason, she said, "All that carrying on, and this is what it's about?" So this was what true despair felt like. Everything you'd screamed yourself hoarse fighting for was nothing but a joke to them. "Alexis, what exactly are you fighting for here? You're someone who's going to marry out of this family. Nothing in this house will ever belong to you." I lifted my gaze to the crystal chandelier hanging overhead. "Fine. Okay." My eyes shifted to my father. "Then I want a full accounting of everything I've put into this family. Every dollar you owe me. Every last cent." The expression on his face froze, then twisted into fury. A vein bulged at his temple. "So now you want to divide up the family assets, is that it?" "Yes." He hadn't expected me to answer. The mop handle swung at me again, harder than any time before. It connected with my arm, and I felt the joint nearly separate from the socket. My mother was grinding her teeth. "New Year's Eve, and we had to bring a debt collector like you into this world." Derek wandered out to grab something for his girlfriend. He gave a cold scoff. "I've always said she was born to bleed us dry." My older sister piled on from the side. "Dad, I told you this little wretch has been a backstabbing parasite since the day she was born!" "I'll beat the life out of her tonight! She's my daughter. I'll kill her if I want. I dare anyone to say a word!" I stood there. I didn't fight back. I didn't move. I let the blows land, one after another. My mother stood beside him like a shrieking fishwife, pointing at me, cursing me for being ungrateful. "I'll say it again. I want what's owed to me. The money I put into building this house, the renovations. All of it. Every cent back." "Over my dead body!" I knew if this kept going, he would actually cripple me. Derek poked his head out again, visibly annoyed. "Can you all keep it down? Tessa and I are trying to sleep." I seized the moment and climbed onto the windowsill at the back of the house. My father's mop had shattered down to nothing but the bare stick. They watched me perched up there without a shred of concern. "How long are you going to keep pulling this stunt?" "Alexis, you've loved doing this your whole life, haven't you? Go ahead and jump. Jump! At least we'd all get some peace and quiet." My father jabbed the stick at me a few times. "Jump! You jump, and I'll spend my own funeral money on yours." My mother frowned. "Alexis, stop making a scene." I stood on the windowsill. The night wind of New Year's Eve curled around my bare feet. Fireworks bloomed above my head. I laughed. "I'm just so tired." I closed my eyes, folded my arms across my chest, and without a second of hesitation, let myself fall backward.