Day 2: Mix Up – by Amber Averay
‘You’re weak!’ her brother spat, tossing her favourite book, sans cover, to the floor and crouching over her. ‘Ma and Pop should have just left you in the snow as a baby – then I wouldn’t have to deal with you. You’re pathetic!’
Dolly’s ma, leaning in the doorway, snorted. ‘She’s too stupid to even do that right.’
I’m not stupid, Dolly wanted to yell, but the words shrivelled to ash on her tongue as she took in her brother’s belligerent expression and her mother’s boredom. Always, with nothing but a look, they’d been able to deflate her flimsy defiance. She couldn’t remember a time she’d stood up to her family.
To be honest, they terrified her.
She’d always been different from the rest of her them – gentler, kinder, compassionate. They were simply…not. Hard, ruthless, heartless, emotionless…she shuddered inwardly, refusing to let anybody see her desperation. Her dislike. She was scared of them, yes, but she kept another truth buried deep inside, where no amount of pushing and prodding would find it:
She hated them.
She fantasised about escaping from the home, running far away, changing her name and starting fresh. Some place where saying ‘please,’ ‘thank you’, ‘sorry’, etc wasn’t viewed as a weakness. Where smiling wasn’t considered warning that you were about to get a fist in the face or a kick to the gut.
From as early as she could remember, her parents tried to teach Dolly that kindness was a personality deficit, to be beaten from her until she was as rage-filled and revolting as them.
Either their teaching was ineffective, or – as her Pop often snarled, exhausted, after a failed ‘lesson’ – she was too stupid to learn.
But Dolly knew she wasn’t stupid. At sixteen, she was intelligent, thoughtful, well-read, with a mind hungry for knowledge and a soul desperate to be free from this hellish pit of misery.
Yet because she didn’t hurl abuse at people, or brawl in the street, or taunt police, or stalk random strangers ‘for fun’, she was considered stupid. Her brother and parents had tried for so long to hurt her, but she’d built a shell around herself, protecting her from their jabs and barbs – until they realised the best way to get to her was through her small book collection. Last week she’d gone to her room and found one of her Mike Shackle books torn to pieces, shredded paper fluttering about like confetti.
It only got worse from there. Elizabeth Chadwick books destroyed, Tim Weaver covers attacked with a sharp knife and random pages torn out. She found bacon rashers wedged inside some of her favourite childhood stories, and excrement smeared over her bookshelves.
She’d bitten through her lip, trying to keep her fury and pain and fear bottled up.
Now Bryan stood over her, eyes burning with fevered hatred and breath rasping past rigid lips; Dolly wanted to shrink into herself, but to show fear to her brother and parents was almost as bad as using manners, so she stared into his crazed expression and hoped for a miracle.
It came seconds later. ‘And you’re not even my real sister!’ her psycho brother screamed, spittle hitting her in the face. ‘There was an issue at the hospital when you were born.’
Ma suddenly straightened up against the doorway and glared at Bryan. ‘Idiot! You weren’t meant to say anything until we were sure!’
‘You got the letter from the hospital, telling you she isn’t yours.’
‘We were waiting for the DNA results to come back before we kicked her out!’ yelled Ma, hands balling into fists at her side.
‘Just kick her out now.’ Bryan shrugged, his temper abruptly calmer than the tranquil sea. ‘Why wait? The hospital already gave us the great news – and we’ve always known she’s different. This explains why she’s so…so…’
‘Pathetic?’ provided Ma. It was her turn to shrug. ‘We always suspected she wasn’t right. This is just confirmation of.’
Dazed, unwilling to hope it was true, Dolly stumbled to her feet and staggered into the kitchen, ricocheting off the doorframe and nearly colliding with her…not her mother. But Ma was angered by the near miss, and shoved Dolly into the wall. A framed picture rattled, but thankfully didn’t fall.
‘Good thing that didn’t break, or you’d have been in strife,’ said Ma, following Dolly through to the kitchen.
But Dolly wasn’t listening. She. Wasn’t. Theirs! Hope flowed through her, relief and desperation and the urgent desire to cry chasing on its heels. All these years they’d tormented her, tortured her, did their best to turn her into one of them – and now the truth was out. They shared nothing – no blood, no biology, no DNA. She belonged to another family!
Still Bryan and Ma mocked her, delighting in listing her oddities, the facts that had only just taken shape to become the whole story. Blindly groping the countertop for something, Dolly’s fingers shook as the wrapped them about the handle of an item and snatched it up. ‘Stay away from me!’ she ordered, wishing she sounded more menacing and less like a cowed kitten.
Her mother and brother laughed, both advancing on her. She picked up the nearest object – a kitchen knife – and held it before her. ‘I said, stay away from me!’
Their mocking laughter echoed in her ears, and she panicked. Hot blood roared through her veins, spilling through her body, filling her with a strength she’d always kept hidden.
She backed toward the door, flung the knife aside, and darted outside, determined to run as fast, as far, as she could. Leave behind these toxic people and their revolting home.
She never knew her freedom was, in a sense, false. For when her Pop returned home, bearing the letter revealing the results of the DNA test, he saw the blood, the rage, the corpses of his wife and son, and smiled.
He was proud. She’d finally broken. He hadn’t needed the test to prove she really did share their genes. He’d bowed to his wife’s demands; but she’d never been known for patience.
His patience had paid off. His daughter made him proud.
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