“Mom and Dad never liked me,” I said in a soft, dream-like voice. For some reason, I felt like I was going to drift off to sleep, and I could barely keep my eyes open. Beau’s hand rested on mine, stroking my fingers so gently it barely felt like he was touching me. I didn’t know why I was talking about my family, to him of all people. But I couldn’t keep my big mouth shut anymore. I had to tell somebody.

The rage that had been bubbling beneath my surface for so many years was finally threatening to take over. The anger, the envy, the injustice of it all, was finally going to come out, and Beau would have to bear the brunt of it. There was no way I could keep quiet anymore.

“They didn’t care about me,” I went on. “They were… doing bad things. I never knew what Dad’s job was, and I only found out years later that those months when he was gone, he was in jail. Mom stayed at home… She drank a lot. She didn’t do drugs, not until I was much older. They never gave a shit about me. I was never important.”

I felt hot tears prickling at my eyes and I batted my lashes furiously, not wanting to cry because of those two bastards. They didn’t deserve my tears, not a single one of them.

“Where are they now?” Beau asked me, his hand smoothing my skin. “What happened to them?”

“Dead,” I replied coolly. “They’re both gone. And I’m better off for it.”

He seemed surprised by the intensity of the hatred I felt for both of my parents, but he didn’t mention it. Instead, he pulled the covers higher, tucking me in until my eyes were really struggling to stay open. It felt cozy like that, with Beau inches away from me, and the bed enveloping me in its promise of a good night’s sleep.

I let myself drift off slowly, watching him through hazy eyes and waiting for him to leave me just like everyone else had.

“I’m not going anywhere,” he said gently, stroking my hair. “I won’t leave you until you fall asleep, babydoll. Close your eyes and rest.”

I let his voice lull me to sleep, and my eyes closed with the heaviness of worry I’d been feeling for my entire life…

* * *

I always knew I wasn’t my parents’ favorite child.

My mother was distant ever since I was a little girl. She never said a word to me, and for the most part, it almost felt like she wasn’t even fully aware of my presence. She avoided me every time I was in the same room, and I was very young when I realized I would never get the attention I wanted from her. Unless there was a special occasion, she didn’t seem to care what I did. And even on days that were holidays or birthdays, I only got a fleeting hug and she would move to someone else who was more interesting. Prettier. Better.

It was always my sister.

Charlotte Rousseau – Charli for short, had always been Mom’s favorite. I couldn’t really blame her, either. I had my own fascination with my older sister, the beautiful, timid blonde beauty who looked so much like me, but at the same time, felt worlds away from me. Sometimes I thought she wasn’t my sister at all. There was no way someone like me could be related to someone as sweet, tender and caring as Charli.

I wanted to be more like her. For the first decade of my life, I struggled with admiration for my sister while she pushed me away. We never spoke about personal things, or spent much time together.

And when I was ten years old, our parents decided that Charli, at fifteen, deserved her own space. She would no longer have a room with me. Instead, I would move to the attic, and she would keep the room we’d grown up in together.

When my mom told me the news in her detached, impersonal voice, I felt angry. And for the first time ever, a feeling awoke inside me that I’d tried to avoid my entire life. Something that made me grow up in a matter of seconds, an emotion that turned me from a lost little girl into a bitter, angry teenager.

Envy.

I was jealous of my sister. I was jealous of the privileges she had, of the helping hands she got in life, of everything being handed over to her on a silver platter while I had to struggle to even get a ‘good morning’ from either one of my parents.

The green-eyed monster took me by surprise, but the feelings were so intense, so filled with anger and rage, I couldn’t look at my sister the same way ever again. And it felt as if something had switched inside her too, at the same moment as it did inside me. Suddenly, she was more interested in me than ever. She tried to make conversation, did her best to engage me in activities, sought me out and tried to spend time with me. But it was too little too late.

When I was younger and desperate for her company, Charli pushed me away. I didn’t care anymore. She had her own friends, and she had the love of both our parents. She was the most popular girl at school, the prettiest, with the blondest hair and the longest legs, with breasts that grew way before they should have. She had it all, and all I had was the monster in my head, telling me I had every reason to hate Charli. She deserved my hatred. She deserved to suffer for taking it all away from me – the looks, the brains, all of it. She should suffer for ruining my life.

My mother wasn’t an attentive parent, but my dad was another story altogether.

He was rarely there, just like I had told Beau. He was sometimes in prison, sometimes away just because he never really acknowledged us as family. But all of this changed a little while before my birthday.

I remember that day as if it were only a day before. Charli had forgotten it was my birthday, and when she congratulated me sulkily, I was thrilled to have any kind of attention from my family. Nobody at school had remembered, either, and I was so starved for attention I would’ve done anything to have them notice me.

Dad came home that day after months of being away. He saw Charli congratulating me, but instead of wishing me a happy birthday himself, his eyes fixed on his older daughter with adoration and love. She’d always been his favorite.

I watched the way he looked at her, and let my anger grow. Later that day, I was told I’d be moving upstairs, and my jealousy festered into something terrible and ugly. I wanted bad things to happen to my sister. I wanted her gone so I could have the love of my parents that she’d stolen away from me.

I still remember the first night I spent in the attic by myself. I’d tried to convince myself that it would be cool to spend the night up there, perhaps pretend I was having an adventure. But the reality was different – the attic of our old, practically crumbling home, was infested with mice and bed bugs, dirty and dusty, scary and dark. I woke up from another nightmare and felt wetness on my cheeks and more between my legs. Shame swallowed me up whole, and I sobbed silently in my pillow. I had never peed the bed, but I knew my parents would be angry if they found out. It would just mean more trouble for them, and they both hated trouble.

I took the sheets off my bed and tried to climb downstairs as quietly as I possibly could. I was on the last step of the stairs when I heard someone walking down the hallway, and I scrambled into the shadows behind the stairs to stay hidden.

My father strolled down the hallway, a bottle in his hand and a smirk on his face. I didn’t like him when he looked like this. He didn’t feel like a father to me in those moments, and he’d hit me more than once when he’d been out drinking. But my mom bore the brunt of it, and I’d seen him smack her so hard she flew across the room on more than one occasion.

I stood in the corner, frozen to the spot and so very afraid my whole body shook in silent shivers. I couldn’t let him hear me. If he found me sneaking around, and with those ruined bedsheets, I’d be in so much trouble.

But he seemed too drunk to even notice my presence. The empty bottle slipped through his fingers and shattered on the floor. I watched him swagger down the hallway to the room I used to share with my sister up until that day. Dad opened the door, and for a second, I caught a glimpse of my sister.

Charli was in the bed we used to share, sitting up with her back against the headboard. She was holding the duvet up to her chest, as if she were trying to protect herself, and her beautiful eyes looked wild and scared.

My father laughed at the sight, and stepped inside the room. The door shut behind him with a loud thud.

I stared at the scene unfolding in front of me, not understanding what exactly was going on. All I knew was that I had to wash the sheets before everyone else woke up. So I went to the bathroom, to the old, often broken washing machine, and put my soaked sheets in it. I almost fell asleep next to it, so tired and nervous from everything that had happened that day I just flopped down in a corner and lay my head against the shaky, sputtering old machine.

I woke up because of my sister’s screams, and furrowed my brows at the sound. She must’ve been having a nightmare.

I took the sheets out of the washer and put them in the dryer, checking to make sure nobody heard or saw me.

I snuck back upstairs, and spent the next hour tossing and turning, waiting for my sheets to dry. Once I couldn’t hear the dryer anymore, I crept downstairs again. It was getting light outside, the sun breaking through the clouds and consoling me, telling me there would be another day, and things would get better.

At least the sheets were dry, and there were no visible marks of the accident I’d had during the night. I sighed deeply in relief and ran back to the stairs.

But in my hurry, I’d forgotten about the bottle my father had broken on the floor, and I stepped right on the jagged pieces of glass in the hallway. I let out a muffled cry, still too terrified I’d wake up my parents, when the glass cut into my foot. But I couldn’t stop the tears.

Before I could make another move, I felt long arms close around me.

“Shhh,” Charli said softly. “It’s okay, be quiet, Lucy. It’s going to be alright, I promise.”

I let her console me, and she used my sheets to stop the bleeding coming from my feet. I stared at the sheets turning crimson in absolute defeat. After everything I’d gone through to get them clean.

Charli did her best to clean my foot, and she took the broken piece of glass out of my heel with her own fingers. While she was doing that, I stared at her with so much anger in my eyes, it was a miracle she didn’t burst into flames on the spot. I hated her. Hated everything she’d done to me, and hated that she was superior to me, not just in school, but when it came to our parents as well.

Even Dad preferred her… It was her room he went into, not mine.

“Let go!” I barked at Charli, because I couldn’t stand another second of her fingers touching my injured skin. “Stop touching me, you slut.”

“Where…” She stared at me, those big blue eyes hurt and her bottom lip trembling. “Where’d you hear that word, Lucy?”

“It’s what Dad calls you and Mom,” I told her smugly. “I thought you liked it.”

I knew she didn’t. Dad only called them that when he’d been drinking a lot, and they both got upset over it. I heard it through the wall when I was washing my sheets, over and over again. That, coupled with Charli’s soft, pathetic crying. She was so weak. I was only ten years old and I already felt so much stronger than my pathetic excuse for a sister.

“Don’t call me that,” Charli whispered, and I scoffed in her face.

“I’ll call you whatever I want,” I snarled. “And you better get your filthy fingers off me.”

Her hands shook as she took them away. She sat down, her legs flopping uselessly against the floor and tears gathering in her eyes. I looked down, and saw the insides of her thighs. There were fresh bruises all over her skin, and caked, dried blood.

“What…” I asked, my words hanging in the air. “What happened?”

Charli saw me looking, and closed her legs so fiercely they made a smacking sound when she turned away from me.

“Fuck off, Lucy!” she shrieked. “I only tried to help you. Only ever tried to help you. All I’ve ever done was for you…”

She burst into tears so desperate I couldn’t handle it. Instead, I wrapped my injured foot in the ruined sheets and climbed up to the attic as fast as I could. I lay on the naked mattress for hours, pretending I couldn’t hear Charli crying, and waited until she went back to her room and the crying stopped.

No one came to get me that morning, and for the first time, but not the last, I skipped school.

For the next four years, I slept on a dirty, stained mattress.

Nobody ever bought new sheets.

* * *

I hadn’t had a nightmare in so long, I almost didn’t recognize the tell-tale signs of it when I sprang up in bed that night.

The soaked clothes I’d worn to bed, the shaky limbs, the tears that had spilled all over my face. The scream on my lips, begging to be released, begging to call for help, for somebody to save me.

Except there was never anyone who could have done it. I’d always been by myself. Even when Charli did her best to get me out of trouble, I believed I had no one. Just me, myself, and I.

I sat up in my bed, the memories fresh in my mind and the scream bitter on my tongue.

And for the first time, I realized what my dreams meant. I realized why my father went back into Charli’s room, and I realized what her bruises and the blood meant.

And for the first time, I screamed in pain.

Not a name, or a word, or for help. I just screamed in raw, absolutely devastating pain that was taking over my body.

When a pair of strong, muscular arms pulled me into their lap, I let it happen, and I accepted a stranger’s help like I’d never done with my sister. I let Beau pull me closer and whisper in my ear, stroke my hair and tell me it was all going to be okay, even though I knew it was a lie. I let him hold me, unsure of whether he was trying to comfort me or just press me down into the mattress for his own filthy interests. But I didn’t resist, and I didn’t fight back. I just let him do it.

“It’s okay,” he said roughly in my ear. “You’re gonna be alright, babydoll.”

I didn’t believe him.

But for the first time, I accepted the help, and I was grateful for it.