NIGHT CHASER ---- original ---- HIATUS

Flawed

"You wretched girl! A C? How do you expect me to be proud of you when your average grade is a C?" Kari screamed. She towered over Memoir, and Memoir shrank back, ever quiet.

"You never ask how school is. When I try to tell you what I don't understand, you wave it away like I don't matter." Memoir mustered up the courage to mumble how she felt to her cruel mother. She hid behind her inconveniently thin, bright blonde hair.

"I'm sure she just needs some help at home." Malco commented, chuckling, trying to keep the conversation light.

"Don't even try to interfere!" Kari snarled at her husband, whom she used to love with all her heart. "Now, Memoir, what did you just say to me? SPEAK!"

Memoir looked at her mother, once again not believing Adelyns stories of how kind her mother used to be. Her severe bun, her sharp eyes, her maniacal glare, all of it screamed, get away from me, or I will make you feel weak. Memoir knew she would be in for another round of screaming if she told her mother the truth. That she couldn't learn in school, as she was always thinking about her home life. She didn't participate, for if she was wrong, she assumed that the teachers would act like her mother, pleasant until you got something wrong.

"Um, I'll do better next time." she muttered, giving in to mer mother once again. Memoir's mother was nice to Adelyn, unpleasant to Malco, and downright ornery to her. Memoir had never known why her mother loved Adelyn, but disliked her and her father. Until one night, Memoir had come down from her bare room to listen to Kari and Malco talk.

"Malco, you need to be stricter with her! Remember what I told you the day she was born?" Kari asked in a gentler tone than Memoir had ever her he speak in before.

"She may be doomed to do terrible things, but we need to stand by her, until the inevitable happens. We need to spend the little time that we have with her as a family. We need to love her and make her life as happy as possible." Malco replied. Memoir couldn't see her parents, but she knew they were both solemn. "You used to be kind and caring. That changed after she was born, and I don't see why."

"Because," Kari cried, "we are going to lose her, and that will make it harder if we are attached, and if she had made a positive change. If we feel like we are losing nothing, then it won't be painful at all."

"Just because we will lose her early doesn't mean we shouldn't make her life as wonderful as possible. This is selfish to neglect and ignore her like she is a waste, like she is already gone. She most likely has a short time here, and we want to do everything we can to make the most of it." Malco was gentle with his pained wife. Memoir held back a scream. She most likely had a short time here? Did that mean she was going to die? Memoir didn't want to die. Memoir just wanted her mother to love her. There was nothing she wanted more. And, as she would find out, there was nothing she needed more.

"You stupid scab of a child! Go to your room!"

"KARI! Do not speak to your daughter that way! She is a human, and therefore makes mistakes! Remember our talk?" Malco shouted. Memoir gasped. She had never heard her father stand up for her that way. Kari always won.

"Malco, Memoir needs to learn her lesson about bad grades! Because bad grades aren't going to get her very far," Kari lectured as if Memoir wasn't there.

You don't want me to get far anyway, so you won't be too attached when I die. Why do you pretend this is the reason?

Memoir stepped back hoping to do her mother's bidding without being noticed. But her mother saw her.

"GO! GO TO YOUR ROOM AND STAY THERE UNTIL BREAKFAST!" Kari screamed. Memoir knew her mother didn't care if she got dinner. Her stomach would grumble after no dinner, and Kari would scream at her for waking her and Malco up. Malco would sneak her a peanut butter and jelly sandwich once Kari went back up to bed, and the grumbling would stop.

Memoir ran up to her room, fighting back tears as hard as she could. Why was she even surprised anymore? Her mother, when not pointing out every flaw Memoir possessed, would mostly ignore her. Malco took care of her, helped her behind Kari's back. That kept Memoir going, knowing that someone loved her. But it hurt so bad that even the woman who had given birth to her didn't want her. She never had made an attempt to make friends at school. She was an outcast, and that was the best her life would be.

"I'm home!" A yell rang out in the large entryway of of the dark and dusty house.

Memoir could hear her mother making a fuss over Adelyn, who had been hanging out with her twelfth grade friends in the snow. Her cheek would be red, and her mother would drape a blanket over Adelyn's shoulders and make her a steaming cup of hot cocoa, but not too hot, otherwise Adelyn would burn her tongue. Was this how Kari would have treated Memoir had she not been... flawed?

A failure?

A mistake?