Chapter 2

That night, I felt so awful I couldn't even look at my mom.

Living with her was suffocating.

So I left.

I hung out by the front gate of Delsphere High all night.

Mom never came to find me.

A bit after four in the morning, I walked the three miles home all by myself.

I was starving, so I snuck into the kitchen to find something to eat.

The house was dead quiet.

I tried not to make any noise. Mom probably slept at the shop and didn't come back.

I opened the fridge. Totally empty.

Cooking anything complicated felt like too much trouble, so I dug through the cabinets forever and finally found a tiny bit of pasta.

I boiled some water, tossed in the pasta, and added a pinch of salt and a splash of oil. That was breakfast.

I wolfed down the pasta, thinking it'd be wonderful if I had an egg to go with this.

Just then, the front door burst open.

Mom spotted me eating in the kitchen, her face twisting with irritation. "Well, well, look who finally came home. Getting bold now, are you? Staying out all night like it's nothing."

While she ranted, I licked the plate clean, not leaving a speck behind.

I finished eating, picked up my plate and fork, and walked to the sink to wash them.

"Thought you were tough, huh?" Mom spat behind me. "If you're really that capable, then don't bother coming back. Ungrateful brat!"

I scrubbed the dishes, ignoring her, still fuming.

But she wasn't finished.

It was as if everything wrong in her life was my fault.

She scoffed. "Living off me every day, not once have you gone hungry. And now you think you'll make it big? What a fantasy."

All my life, I'd lived in this suffocating environment, always tiptoeing around Mom's moods.

I was constantly on edge, terrified that anything I did might set her off and I'd end up getting beaten or yelled at again.

All this was bearable.

I just didn't understand why she wouldn't let me attend Delsphere High School.

I put the dishes away in the cupboard.

Mom flung her gloves at me, hitting me squarely. "I'm talking to you. Can't you hear me?"

For as long as I could remember, all of Mom's anger had been aimed squarely at me.

I picked up the gloves from the floor, my hands trembling with resentment, and muttered, "I'm listening."

"Oh really?" she snapped. "Doesn't look like it to me. Think you're grown now, huh? Talking back like you've got something to say?"

Suddenly, a shaft of light pierced the stifling room.

It cut between us like a blade.

I met her blazing eyes and demanded, "Mom, are you really my mom?"

I had been dying to ask that for ages, but I was afraid of hurting her feelings.

I was just a kid, and I assumed that if Mom got angry, it must have been because of me.

But as I grew older, I realized her anger was never about what I did.

It was about who I was. My very existence was the problem.

I was an eyesore to her.

That was why she was always mad at me.

It was like... I was never meant to exist in this world at all.

I thought I saw Beatrice's rigid posture waver for a split second.

Was she frightened by what I said?

Was she shocked that her submissive daughter actually stood up to her?

It sure looked that way to me.

Snapping out of her daze, Mom grabbed a stick from beside her and lunged at me.

I didn't dodge. I just stood there, taking blow after blow until the stick actually snapped in half.

After the beating, she collapsed into a chair, clutching her forehead in frustration. "Go to vocational school if you want, or get a job if you don't. I don't care anymore."

My back throbbed with searing pain, but I didn't cry. I just kept swallowing the blood from my bitten lip.

The metallic taste of blood was even more pungent than the stench from our fish shop.

"I'll go to vocational school," I said coldly.

I was barely fifteen. Who would even hire me if I went out looking for work?

Beatrice looked up at me, her chest heaving with ragged breaths.

Her glare seemed to tell me I'd made the wrong decision again.

It felt like what she really wanted was for me to give up on school entirely.