Scenario: Nobody will know about this secret
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Nobody will know about this secret
The doorbell rings and I don’t even have to look up from my book to know that it’s Sarah.
My sister doesn’t understand the concept of privacy, so she always rings the bell before she barges into my room.
“Hey, Em,” she says, and I look up to see a small smile on her face.
Sarah’s smile is like a ray of sunshine, and it makes me feel bad because I don’t have a smile to give back to her.
It’s not that I don’t love her, because I do, but it’s hard to feel like a part of the family when your mother can barely stand to look at you.
“Hey, Sarah.” I put my book aside and sit up on the bed.
“What’s up?”
She takes a seat next to me and fiddles with her hands.
“I have a date tonight with Jared.”
“Where are you guys going?”
“I’m not sure yet.” She shrugs.
“He’s picking me up at seven.”
“Make sure you’re home by curfew,” I say, doing my best to give her the same advice that any big sister would offer.
It’s hard to be the responsible one, but someone needs to be.
Sarah was always the child that my mom wanted, and I was the mistake from her past.
She doesn’t let me forget it either.
I can still remember what it was like when I was little.
My mom would hold Sarah in her arms and coo at her like she was some kind of angel while she made me watch from across the room.
I didn’t understand why she didn’t love me, and I asked her about it once, but all she did was laugh at me, so I never asked again.
From that point on, I knew that I was on my own.
When Sarah was old enough to start asking questions about me, I knew that I had to be careful.
I couldn’t let Sarah suffer for my mother’s mistakes, so I pretended to be the perfect sister for as long as I could.
It wasn’t easy, but Alex helped me get through it.
He’s the only one who knows the truth about who I am, and he’s been there for me since we were kids.
He’s the only reason that I’ve been able to keep things together with my family, but lately, it feels like everything is falling apart and there’s nothing that he or I can do to stop it.
I’m too old to be playing pretend anymore, and things are only going to get more difficult as time goes on.
When I was growing up, I always knew that I was the outsider in my family.
I was the only one with brown hair while everyone else had blonde hair like my mom, Martha, and my sister, Sarah.
It may not sound like a big deal, but all of the other mothers in the neighborhood liked to gossip about how much Sarah looked like Martha, and no one could understand why I didn’t look like either of them at all.
I was the odd one out, and everyone knew it.
Growing up in the small town of Bluebell, North Carolina was hard because everyone treated me differently because of what they thought they knew about me.
Everyone could tell that I was different, even though they didn’t know why.
The sad part is that my mother didn’t even try to hide it from me.
She made it perfectly clear that she didn’t want me around because I was just another reminder of how her life went off course when she was younger.
My father, John, on the other hand, has always been kind to me, even though he isn’t my biological father.
He never made me feel like an outsider in his home, even when he married Martha after my mom died.
He tried to include me in his life, but it was hard for me to let him in.
After everything that happened, it was hard for me to trust anyone.
Even now, when it feels like my family is falling apart, he still tries to get me to open up to him.
He tries so hard to be a good father to me, but it’s not that simple.
My mother may not have loved me, but she always made sure to remind me that he wasn’t my real father, no matter how much he wanted to be.
There were days when he would try to show me love, only for Martha to come behind him to take it all away from me.
He was the only one that I had for most of my life, but even he didn’t make me feel like I belonged.
Sarah, on the other hand, is the glue that holds my family together.
She’s the sweetest person that you’ll ever meet, and she has a way of making everyone feel special, even if they don’t deserve it.
That’s why it’s so hard for me to watch as Martha fusses over Sarah during the planning for her wedding to Mark.
No one should love weddings as much as Martha does, but she still found a way to make Sarah feel guilty for being so happy about the event.
It was hard for me to watch as Martha planned every little detail of the ceremony without giving Sarah a say in any of it.
Sarah is going to be Martha’s maid of honor, and I know that she’ll be the perfect person for the job.
She’ll be able to keep Martha calm during the whole event without any problems, and she’ll look amazing in whatever dress Martha picks out for her.
As for me, Sarah has asked me to be one of her bridesmaids, even though Martha didn’t want me to be a part of the wedding at all.
Sarah talked her into letting me be there, but that doesn’t mean that Martha has forgotten that she doesn’t want me around.
She keeps finding new ways to remind me that she doesn’t care about me or my life.
Right now, she’s angry because I haven’t been able to make it to any of the dress fittings for the bridesmaid dresses.
Sarah knows that it’s because I’ve been busy with school and work, but Martha doesn’t care about that at all.
“I can’t believe that you haven’t had time to come to any of these fittings,” Martha yells as soon as she sees me walk through the door.
“You’re so irresponsible!”
I want to tell her that it’s not my fault that I haven’t been able to come, but it’s not like she would believe me.
Instead, I keep my mouth shut and let her yell at me some more.
That way, she can feel like she’s doing her job as my mother without actually having to take care of me in any way.
Martha always finds new ways to make me feel terrible about myself every time she sees me.
It’s been like that since the day that she brought me home from school and realized that she was going to have to raise me whether she wanted to or not.
At first, she tried to make me part of her family by pretending that she didn’t hate me.
When that didn’t work out, she started trying to make me look bad in front of my father and sister so that they would hate me as much as she does.
For a while, it worked.
My father wasn’t able to see through her act, so he started believing everything that Martha said about me.
Even Sarah started to believe that something was wrong with me after hearing Martha complain about how terrible of a daughter that I am.
I know that they’re all disappointed in me, but there’s nothing that anyone can do about it now.
“I’m sorry that I haven’t been able to make it,” I say even though I don’t really mean it.
“Whatever,” Martha says as she shakes her head in disbelief.
“I don’t know what we’re going to do about you now.”
A few minutes later, Martha finally decides to pull out the dress that she ordered for me without even asking if it would fit or not.
I try it on right there in front of them because Martha doesn’t care if anyone sees me naked or not.
It’s so embarrassing to stand in front of them in nothing but my underwear while they pretend to talk about how well the dress fits me even though it really doesn’t.
According to Martha, the dress is ugly and doesn’t even look good on me.
I’m not even sure why she bothered to order a dress for me in the first place if she already knew that she was going to hate it.
It’s not like I can afford to buy a new one for myself.
Sarah tries to change the subject by talking to Martha about what they can do to make the dress look better on me.
I know that she’s only doing this because she feels bad for me, but I don’t want her to have to stand up for me when I know that Martha will never be happy with anything that I choose.
Before Martha could say anything else mean to me, she gets a phone call from someone.
She tells us to wait for her there while she goes and answers it in another room.
I don’t know what to do with myself while I wait for Martha to come back.
If I sit down on one of the couches in this room, I know that she’ll yell at me for getting them dirty.
The only other option is to stand here in front of them in my underwear like a complete loser.
I decide to just pull my arms around my body and try not to think about how exposed I am right now.