Chapter 4

I knelt on the floor for three days and three nights.

When I fainted, I immediately forced myself back up. I knelt until my whole body wouldn't stop shaking, until my knees were covered in red, green, and purple bruises.

Mom allowed me to get up because my teacher was coming for a home visit.

This was the most important year of my life. The SAT was coming up.

Mom took off her designer clothes and put on old ones from years ago.

"Ms. Harper, I've raised Joy all by myself through blood, sweat, and tears. I've given this child all my money and energy."

"But the child doesn't know gratitude. A few days ago, after I said a few words to her, she threatened to run away from home. I practically got on my knees begging before she'd come back."

I lay on my bedroom bed. I wanted to get up, but the severe pain in my knees forced me to lie back down.

I heard the teacher ask about my whereabouts.

"This child has everything done for her at home—never lifts a finger. Every day she goes out to mess around with delinquents from society, lazy and never comes home..."

I heard the teacher sigh heavily.

Because of Mom, I'd long had a terrible reputation at school.

Everyone avoided me like the plague, desperate to keep their distance.

Only Ms. Harper was willing to accept me, treat me normally, not exclude me.

When I was feeling low, she'd patiently comfort me and tell me I was a good kid.

Wave after wave of shame and frustration surged up from the bottom of my heart.

The teacher didn't ask about me again and quietly left.

I heard the sound of my heart breaking—quietly yet violently.

The last person in the world who liked me didn't like me anymore.

"Go wash the dishes." Mom pushed open the door and gave me a cold command.

I endured the severe pain, practically leaning against the wall with half my body just to make it to the kitchen.

In the dead of winter, the hot water pipe had long been frozen. Ice-cold water flowed from the tap.

A broken shard on the edge of a bowl accidentally cut my hand. Blood flowed everywhere.

I planned to find a bandage after finishing the dishes.

But when I turned around, I smelled thick smoke.

Thinking there was a fire, I ignored the pain, dropped the bowl, and ran to the living room shouting.

"Mom! Mo—"

The second half of the sentence stuck hard in my throat when I saw the pile of ashes in front of Mom.

My diary, my drawings, and my memories with the chick were all in Mom's hands, gradually burning to ash.

"Those are mine!" For the first time, I lost control and shouted at her.

I rushed forward trying to put out the flames, trying to snatch back everything that was mine.

But it was too late.

Burned clean away.

"Ms. Harper said your grades have been slipping lately."

"I only came in second place once..."

"Isn't that because your mind isn't where it should be? Look at what you've been writing and drawing. If you hadn't been secretly keeping that beast and making your room a mess, would you have only placed second!"

"It has nothing to do with the chick!" I trembled, tears streaming down my face in strings.

I clutched the remnants of the notebook in my hands, which wouldn't stop shaking.

I didn't understand why Mom had to be so ruthless.

I just wanted a friend, someone who could keep me company.

Even if it wasn't human.

The chick couldn't speak, but it had listened to so much of my pain.

I told it about when I was little and Mom and Dad were fighting over their divorce, how Dad found a gentle, caring new girlfriend and turned around and abandoned me.

I told it how every day at school people whispered behind my back, how everyone knew my shameful stories and thought I was a weirdo who didn't fit in.

I told it about Mom's extreme, numbing control over me and her endless beatings.

No one was willing to listen to these things. Only that fluffy little head would blink its eyes and look at me obediently.

I drew many pictures and wrote many diary entries. These were my spiritual pillars for so long.

But now, Mom had destroyed everything.

She destroyed me too.