Chapter 29
Sable
“Sable,” Mom’s voice thunders through the house.
Uh-oh.
She’s angry. Mom’s never nice when she sounds like that. What did I do this time?
Did she find out I was playing with my toys last night? She never said I could. I was allowed to play with them four nights ago, so it’s too soon for her to let me again.
Stupid. Stupid. I thought I cleaned it up all nice, but maybe Mr. Twinkles fell over again—he always does because I can’t put him away without bringing the chair over.
And Mom will know if I moved the chair. She always knows.
But I… I couldn’t stand reading those stupid books anymore.
I hate math. And I was bored. And I already did all my homework.
And Ella was in the garden with Grandma.
And I wasn’t allowed to join even though Grandma invited me—Mom and Dad both said no because I’m still in trouble from spilling my drink at dinner last week.
I’m always in trouble. Not like Ella. I hate it.
I slam my pencil on my stupid math workbook and glare out the window. I bet she’s still having fun with Grandma. Mom said I’m not allowed to see her unless I’ve finished the entire chapter because I failed another test. I suck at dividing things. And I hate fractions too.
“Sable, come here right now.”
My tummy clenches. Mom sounds angrier this time.
My hands shake as I walk as quickly as I can without it being called a run. I try to fix my clothes and make my hair pretty and unknotted like Ella’s. A pain starts in my throat when I see the pencil stain on my bright white top.
No, no, no—Mom’s going to be even madder at me now.
“Sable!”
Crap. “Coming!” My breaths are all hot and broken as I break Dad’s rule of no running in the house—and Mom’s rule about raising my voice.
I fist my hands. They have so many stupid rules, and I try so hard not to break them, but they keep making me do things like this so I don’t get into even more trouble. But then when Ella skips around or does something she shouldn’t, they don’t tell her off like they do me. I just don’t get it.
My bottom lip wobbles as I slow down before reaching the smallest living room in our house. I clamp my teeth together and try to stop my entire body from trembling when I see Ella darting into the room ahead of me.
Her long, pretty black hair flows behind her when she moves that quickly. She’s wearing the sparkly pink dress Ah Ma brought her when she visited last month.
Ah Ma never got me a dress or anything nice. She only gave me those stupid math books.
My forehead wrinkles as I stomp in behind Ella—I know it’ll get me in trouble, walking in an “unladylike” way, but my feet can’t help it.
When Mom’s eyes lock on me, I think I might throw up. My heart is beating so fast, I’m scared it’ll come right out of my chest. I know that look—she’s going to be extra mean, and she’s going to do it in front of Ella so I feel worse.
“What do you call this?” Mom points at the TV.
My eyes widen. A kids’ show is on the screen, the sound so low I can barely even hear it. So this isn’t about playing with the toys? I’m confused.
“Did you think I wouldn’t find out that you snuck out of your room to watch TV?”
I… What? My mouth opens and closes as my eyes dart between her and the screen.
Snuck out? The last time I tried doing that, Mom locked me in the maid’s bathroom, which has no light in it.
It wasn’t for that long, but it felt like hours.
I hated sitting in the dark and quiet like that, and the drip, drip, drip of the tap made me feel crazy. I don’t want to go through that again.
“I didn’t,” I say, quiet as a mouse because she always seems to be angrier when she can hear me.
Mom moves so fast, grabbing me by the arm and pulling me right in front of the TV. Tears burn my eyes from the sting of her nails digging into my skin. If I tell her she’s hurting me, it’ll only be worse.
I think I hear Ella gasp behind us, and the ugly monster inside me turns. It’s dark, and red, and it wants to break things and roar at Ella, Mom, Dad, my dumb teachers who keep telling Mom about what I do at school.
“Do not lie to me,” Mom hisses.
“I’m not lying.” I keep my voice quiet, even though the beast inside me is breathing fire into my stomach.
It’s spreading into my chest, down to the tips of my fingers and toes.
Taking over. I think I’m going to explode like those big bombs in the movies.
I’m going to crash and burn everything around.
“Sable—”
“It wasn’t fucking me!”
Oh no.
Mom’s hard, bony fingers move to my hair. I scream when the strands are yanked back toward the couch. “That is no language for a seven-year-old to use.”
She lets go. I scramble to sit, clutching the sore spot on my head and blinking hard to stop the tears from falling. My fists shake. The monster in me wants to hit her so, so bad, but I—it feels like I can’t breathe.
Oh no, no, I really can’t breathe.
“It was me,” Ella rushes, hesitating before deciding not to reach out and touch Mom.
Why is she crying? It’s not her that Mom’s mad at.
She didn’t even feel bad that I was getting the blame for what she did until Mom started hurting me. She probably wouldn’t have said anything if the worst thing Mom did was lock me up in my room like she always does.
I swipe my hand over my eyes when a tear breaks free. Everything is buzzing inside me, and I’m overflowing. All I can feel is the dark, blazing, dangerous monster that always gets me into trouble.
“Mom, please, it’s my fault,” Ella begs, standing too far away to stop anything else from happening.
“Get out, Ella, and stop crying,” Mom snaps. “It’s something your sister would do.”
“Mom—”
“Elanor.”
She sucks in a sharp breath. For a second, I think she’s going to keep sticking up for me like my teacher says older siblings should. But then Ella bows her head and backs away. “Okay.”
She leaves.
Of course she does. Ella doesn’t like me even though I tried so, so hard to be like her, but she’s perfect, and smart, and pretty, and everyone at school likes her. She doesn’t sit by herself at lunch and always gets picked to join a team during PE.
Maybe—maybe if I wasn’t so stupid, none of this would be happening to me. I just have to be more like Ella, but I can’t. Every time I try, it never works.
Angry tears blur my vision as I glare at the door she left through, but they don’t fall.
“Did you know your father cheated on me while I was pregnant with you, Sable?”
My eyes snap up to Mom. She isn’t looking at me. She almost sounds… sad. But I’m not that dumb. Mom is never really sad. She only paints her anger in different colors when she talks to me.
I don’t like this story.
She’s never told me more than that, but the last time she said it, she sent me to live with Ah Ma for a whole month, and I came back covered in big bruises that took forever to go away because she’s so much stricter than Mom and has a stick that really hurts.
“It was the first time—as far as I could tell,” she keeps going, looking lost as she stares at the wall above my head. “He met a woman at a bar, and I smelled her all over him when he got home.”
I frown, gripping my shirt so she doesn’t see my hands tremble. Something bad is going to happen. I can feel it.
Her mean eyes fall to me. “I had the opportunity to get rid of you before you were born. My greatest regret is not taking that opportunity.”
No, no, no, no, no, no.
My tummy sours, and the tears I tried so hard to hold back come falling down. Why does my mother hate me so much? I’ve tried being good. I’ve tried doing everything she told me to.
Does she tell Ella this?
The second I think it, I know the answer is no. Mom, Dad, Ah Ma, Grandma—none of them would talk to Ella like that. Just me and the red monster they must see growing inside me.
“Since the day you came into this world, screaming bloody murder for so long that the doctors were worried, you’ve been nothing but a disappointment.”
“But—but I wasn’t the one watching TV. It was Ella! She—she did it. She said so! I was in bed asleep. I never left!” I’m a blubbering mess.
Mom hates blubbering messes.
“It’s not just about the TV, Sable,” she hisses.
I flinch. The monster snaps its teeth.
“It’s about how you can’t do a single thing right, and because we’re good people, we’re still stuck taking care of you. I could have given you up when you were a baby, and not once have you ever thanked me for letting you keep living in my home.”
“I don’t know what you want from me!” I’m yelling—the monster is making me.
Her face twists into an ugly scowl that she’d call unbecoming of an Eldrith lady. “I want you to be like Ella.”
The monster doesn’t like that. “I hate her, and I hate you!”
A gasp sounds from outside the door, right before fire burns across my face in time with the slap that rebounds inside my skull. The tears fall even faster, and all me and the beast can do is imagine burning the whole world to the ground.
“Nobody could ever want you, Sable. I want you to remember that.” Mom’s eyes are almost bulging out of her head, and steam practically pours from her nose. But she doesn’t once raise her voice.
“There will never be anyone who will come save you or choose you, because everything bad that has ever happened in your life is because you are you. You will forever be insurmountable.”
“Why do you hate me?” the monster and I ask through clenched teeth.
She looks at me like I’m one of the animals that snuck onto the patio from the forest, and she’s about to call the groundskeeper to make sure it never comes back. “You’ve never given anyone a reason not to.”