"Sang! Get your worthless ass down here!" I wince at my step mother's harsh shout from downstairs. Not knowing what I'll face when I enter the living room where she sits I mentally brace myself, taking a fortifying breath to settle my nerves before entering the room.
"Yes, Mistress?" I ask, using the title she requires of me whenever speaking to her. She looks me up and down, her upper lip curling back and I fight back the full body shudder I feel coming at the revulsion and hate I see in her milky blue eyes, forever glassy due to the sheer amount of medication she consumes.
With a dismissive huff she returns her gaze to the television where she and my sister Marie, who has yet to acknowledge my presence, are watching yet another season of The Bachelor, and although I no longer hold her complete attention, I keep alert, knowing from experience that she is still very aware of me.
"Your father has recently taken a job in Charleston and we will be moving to South Carolina this Friday, the house has already been sold." She says this so nonchalantly, as if discussing the current weather outside and not the uprooting of our entire life here in Illinois in six days. I struggle to keep my expression blank, she hates it when I show emotions or react in any way unless it is to show pain from punishments, that she revels in. Her explanation for this is simple: I have the eyes and smile of a whore, therefore I do not get to show any emotion but the pain I deserve for my whorish behavior. I've never truly believed her, as I know the definition of a whore and I do not comply with it.
Satisfied that I have not shown any of the shock or sadness I feel at the prospect of leaving the only home I've ever known, she continues to reveal the true reason for calling me down from my prison-sorry I mean my room.
"You will pack the house in its entirety, and clean it from top to bottom by Thursday so your father has nothing to worry about, and my daughter and I can be relieved of the stresses of moving." I bow my head to hide the despair on my face, but I can't help it this time. She expects me to pack nearly 18 years of belongings from our four bedroom two bath house in a matter of days. By myself.
Ignoring the burning sensation behind my closed eyelids I force myself to nod. "Yes, Mistress."
When I don't immediately move her face falls into a mean scowl. "Well, what are you waiting for? This house isn't going to pack and clean itself. Get out of my sight you ungrateful slut!"
With that, I turn tail and rush to the garage where I find piles of flattened packing boxes that cement the reality of our impending move. Grabbing as many as I can I head back upstairs and begin the long moving process. Maybe I can make it fun, like a massive game of Tetris, I shake my head at the thought, there is no making this fun, but at least I should be free of punishments, can't exactly pack and clean if I can't move now can I?
***
It turns out that you can clean and pack when you can't move, even if your ribs are cracked, your body black and blue and your throat burns from swallowing lemon juice and vinegar.
I shudder at the memory of my latest punishment.
I'm packing last room in the house, folding Marie's clothing from her overflowing closet and I find myself comparing my room to hers once more.
Where her walls are covered in fresh dark purple paint and there are band posters hanging everywhere, mine are decked out in nothing but peeling yellow paint reminiscent of decaying mustard and nothing else. My closets are nearly bare, all of my clothing and worldly possessions able to fill two and a half drawers of my rickety old dresser. My bed boasts a threadbare, practically ancient twin mattress on a cheap metal frame, topped with a scratchy blue set of sheets and flat pillows, a stark contrast to Marie's rich dark cherry sleigh bed set with a queen mattress and a mountain of colorful blankets and pillows all purchased within the last few years or so.
As I lament the difference in how our parents treat us I feel a stray tear fall down my left cheek. Not even bothering to wipe it away I return to packing my half sister's many, many shoes and I find myself softly singing a lullaby my stepmother used to sing to me, before everything changed.
"You are my sunshine
my only sunshine
you make me happy
when skies are gray
you'll never know, dear
how much I love you
please don't take my sunshine away."
So lost in my nostalgic tune, I miss the shift in the air alerting me to my stepmother's presence in the room. Therefore I nearly jump out of my skin when I feel a hand wrench my arm backward and spin my to meet her furious gaze. Her eyes nearly burn with anger and hatred, a vein throbs in her forehead and her teeth are bared in a snarl similar to that of a rabid wolf.
"You whore! What have I told you about your stupid voice? And is that a tear I see, is the whore crying?" I cringe back from her screeching, which only enrages her further and I can feel myself start to shake.
"I...I...I-" my stuttered attempt at an apology causes her face to shut down into an indifferent mask, which scares me more than her screaming fit of anger.
"I guess I'll just have to give you something to really cry about then won't I?" Her question is rhetorical and I find myself being dragged from the room and into the bathroom.
She turns to me with and solemn "wait right here" before she leaves, but not before locking the door preventing any escape.
Several terrifyingly quiet moments later the door whips back open and I see her holding a stool, a glass of some yellow mixture and some rope. My shaking body goes rigid when I start to realize just how far gone she must be at the moment, knowing how badly the lemon vinegar mix will sear my esophagus.
Placing the wooden stool into the shower, she shoves me in after it, causing both me and the stool to crash to the floor and I feel something crack, I think it was my ribs. Angered by my fall, she jerks me upward and settles me onto the once again upright stool before tying me to it with the rope. My hands are secured behind my back with little care or finesse, the fibers of the rope rubbing at the skin where it touches across my legs, stomach and arms as she knots it to the stool.
Once assured that I can no longer move from the stool and that the rope is painfully tight, my stepmother turns to grab the devil juice.
"Open wide little harlot, time to make sure you can't use that whorish voice of yours during the move tomorrow," she practically purrs.
Shoving the glass cup at my mouth, I try and fail to keep my lips shut and avoid the pain I know will come next. Angry at my resistance she punches me in the ribs and I gasp at the pain, allowing her to force the liquid down my throat.
I try to scream, as the burning is intense, but a strangled croak is all that comes out which causes my stepmother's face to light up with glee. It hurts to see how much joy she feels from tormenting me, and I have to wonder just how much of it is her illness and how much is just...her...hating me.
Apparently this tie-up, singe-throat torture isn't punishment enough for singing and crying because she turns on the shower, turning the knob to pour water so hot that it burns my skin so badly I nearly fall with the stool to avoid the boiling spray.
"This may not be enough to cleanse the whore from your soul but it makes me feel better, have a nice night, slut,"she smiles and turns to leave before glancing over her shoulder. "Don't forget to finish Marie's room in the morning."
With that I'm left alone, tied up in the shower with my throat burning, ribs throbbing, skin burning and heart hurting. Happy 18th birthday to me, I snort. What did I do to deserve this life?
***
The front door slamming brings me back to the present, and to the boxes I'm currently hauling downstairs while my family is out to one last Illinois breakfast before we make the drive to our new home.
Voices from the living room signal that they've arrived home and I set the final box down, my ribs protest the move loudly but I have to ignore it for now.
My father glances at me when I enter the room. "Have you finally finished with the boxes, Sang?" He questions and I nod. "Good, now you need to pack our suitcases and backpacks into the car and then we can leave."
"Yes, Father." I catch the slight wince when I call him father but ignore it for the sake of my beaten heart.
Turning back to the mountain of boxes, I quickly find what suitcases he meant and head outside to load the large SUV. Both Marie and my stepmother come outside to "supervise" my packing, but really they just want to boss me around. They both have several large alligator skin suitcases they swear are all the rage right now that take up the most space in the trunk. My father only has two large black ones and I have a small ragged pink one I've had since I was a child. Along with my backpack, I can fit everything I own into these two pieces of luggage which forces a sigh from me at my obvious misfortune in family.
Satisfied that I've collected everything, I wait for my family to get comfortable in the car before settling carefully, so as to not upset my aching bruised body, in the seat behind my stepmother. She prefers me there so that she cannot see my "whorish" face in the rear view mirror.
We drive for hours, only stopping three time: once for my family to eat lunch at a fancy restaurant while I wait in the car, as I did not deserve to eat such good food; the second time was for gas that I had to pump, and a third time we pulled over randomly, this stop changed my life.
My father jumps out of the car now pulled over on the side of the road, and I'm confused as to the reason for our stop, were only an hour from our destination if my internal clock is correct.
Suddenly he throws my door open and tells me to get out of the car. I do so cautiously, a little concerned that there may be something wrong with the car that he needs me to fix. He found out I had read up and learned how to fix most vehicles and motorcycle and so he exploited my interest and abilities for his own gain.
I'm wrong, there's nothing wrong with the car except for the fact that I was in it apparently.
"Sang, you are 18 now and I no longer owe your mother anything, I promised her I would take care of you and I have but no more," I can hardly grasp the words he's saying, and I feel like puking when he continues, "you're an adult now and we don't want you with this family anymore, so take this envelope, it'll have everything you need to start a new life away from us."
He hands me the large envelope and I stare at it unseeingly as he continues to explain that he's given me a thousand dollars cash and a card to access my bank account that apparently he's placed over five thousand dollars into and a business card with the number of an apartment building where he's rented me a furnished place and paid two months rent. I hear his words and logically I know what this all means, I have a home and, with my own stash of money saved throughout my life I have nearly $11,000 waiting for me. However, right this second all I can process is the fact that my own family hates me so much they've bought me a new life and are sending me packing.
So lost in my jumbled head I barely register my mother and sister cackling in the car and my father patting me awkwardly on the shoulder.
Turning my gaze to the man who should have loved me, who should have protected me from my life so full of pain and hatred I see only an indifferent stranger.
I wet my suddenly dry lips and force words out of my battered throat. "So this is goodbye? I'll never see any of you ever again?"
My question is met with silence and that is all the answer I need. Nodding I go to speak again when a yellow taxi cab pulls up alongside us.
Rolling down his window, the driver, who looks not entirely dissimilar from Santa Claus smiles at me. "Hey there little darlin' I heard you needed a ride home."
I smile weakly at his warm greeting, already a stranger has shown me more warmth than my family has in all my life so I nod at him before the stranger posing as my father tells him what must be my new address.
Without another word to me, my father in name only fishes out my luggage from the trunk, places it in the cab and hops back in the car with his family.
They don't spare me another glance before nearly peeling out of the rest stop on the side of the road.
"Little darlin', you alright there?" The cabbie Santa's voice snaps me from my daze and I nod, slowly sinking into the back seat of the cab.
"I'm alright sir, thank you though." My voice is a barely there whisper of sound and I see him frown slightly when I speak.
"Well if you're sure, let's make our way to the Sergeant Jasper then," his voice is forcibly cheerful, perhaps he's puzzled out that my family just deserted me, that I'm now alone, and that they didn't blink an eye, and that I can't bring myself to feel anything but numb anymore.
I shake myself from such dark thoughts. If they don't care then I'll have to find a new family that does, I can fix me and live a life without constant fear, and pain, and oppression.
The more I think about, the more I realize that they've done me a rather large favor, they've freed me from my prison and gave me my life back. At only 18 years and a day of age my life can finally begin.
This time around maybe I'll get to know what love feels like.