Terrible Childhood

I head back to my house with the white nylon swinging in my hands. A little drop of rain falls on my cheeks and I look up to find a star less sky. It's bluish black body is full of swollen bucky clouds.

It is unclear to me why, but I have never seen a star on a rainy night, maybe it's because the clouds cover them, thus hiding them.

Honestly, I have a bad memory of the rain. I know it's cold and relaxing when you lay on your couch with a mug of hot tea watching some N*****x or a plate of ice blocks on your laps crunching to the splitting sound of the rain, if you are my kinda girl, but my earliest memory of the rain isn't so rosy.

I remember standing in a field with a sunflower in my little hands. The sunflower in my hands fit in with the flowers lined up in front of a grey gravestone.

I stand in the midst of various adults clothed in a black overall gown. My hair is gelled back with stylish little silver pin on the side.

The sky is ash and cloudy as various drops of rain fall from it, landing on my cheeks as my eyes roam surveying my surroundings.

Various ash tombs stones stand rigid on the low grass which carpets the ground.

A dozen people dressed in black carry umbrellas as they gather round a particular stone with the name 'Anika Gomez!'

"Once existed, Anika Gomez, a rose among thorns." 

Anika Gomez was my mother. She and I had been inseparable but now the voids of time fades all my memory of her making us distant, leaving me with only remnants.

I keep a picture of her in the centre page of my diary, and I also have the sliver locket she gave me for my fifth birthday.

She died when I was six. She was brutally murdered right before my watery eyes, with bullets boring holes in her head and heart. Clearly a murder case but unfortunately, the police weren't so enthusiastic about her case because she was black and until date, it's still an unsolved murder case.

From the little I remember about her, she grew up in an orphanage home in Florida. She got impregnated when she was sixteen from a gang rape by several white Spanish dudes. She decided to keep me because I was hers, finally something she could call her own. As an orphan, she never truly owned anything.

Her delicate, lively voice always sang to me in the loveliest hum while she caressed me with her warm kisses ; 

"You will always be my best decision, Krystal!" 

She was a single mother working as a waitress in a fancy five-star restaurants. I don't remember the name of the restaurant, but I feel her death is somehow connected to it. 

The gray faces at her burial stare back at me, their mouths move in sympathy; "poor child…!"

You see how cruel time is, one's memory of one's loved one is buried and lost in the voids of time. 

"Who's going to take care of her? She has no one!" Some other voices respond. A bunch of blurry faces stare back at me. My eyes are red and flooded with sorrow and tears.

At this rate, I don't even bother to run from the rain any more.

Let the rain wet my clothes and, hopefully, wash away all my woes. Instead, I walk under the pouring rain.

I just realized I am not so enthusiastic to go back home. Would you be enthusiastic when you have your roommate's creep waiting for you back home? Probably not.

I am not going back home, at least not yet. 

My mind drifts back to the past. After I was orphaned, I was sent to an orphanage home 'Joy orphanage home.' 

I lived there with nuns until I was adopted by an American family.

The smiths were a highly comfortable family. 

The first time I stepped into the Smith's mansion, I thought it was a hotel.

“It is larger than any house I had ever seen.”

I walk into the Smith's mansion. There's a circular stair which looks like a curved snake. Its rails are sliver and slim with the edges carved to spread out like a King cobra's head. 

My eyes go up to the golden chandelier budging out and hanging from the celling. Tiny diamonds sparkle down at me.

Their sitting room was enormous, with a king-sized white couch with golden arms close to the stairs.

Mrs smith leads me holding my little hands right up to my room.

Finally, I was adopted. The thought of it sent bubbles to my eight years old self's head and her to cloud nine.

" My life is going to get better " I thought.

'Pt ff' now I know better.

The walls are pink and by the edge of the wall, there is a huge white cupboard containing numerous toys. I see them through it's slim, long rectangular glass window. 

They saw me too.

Different sizes of Barbie dolls with their golden full hairs, all toys that Mama would've saved for months to be able to afford just one.

The room is massive with a princess bed in the middle of it. You know all those Barbie princess beds. I raced towards the wardrobe, swinging it open. My eyes roam for a long time admiring all the hanged clothes. They extend occupying the large space provided for clothes and they are mostly coloured gowns. 

Closing the wardrobe, I run spinning in the room for nearly three minutes then I jump on the bouncy bed. Mrs Smith 'mum' watches me through the lids on her glasses. On her face, there's a lively smile as she continues watching me.

"Krystal!"

I remember her calm voice call out my name. 

"Come here, darling!" She holds my little hands and I walk with her climbing quickly down the stairs.

At the end of the stairs, I see Mr Smith and his son. Mr Smith is holding a plumb, blonde boy of around thirteen years. His hand is on the boy's little shoulders and the child keeps looking up anxiously at him. When we finally get off the stairs, Mrs Smith leads me to them. 

"This is Krystal...Krystal, this is Dad and Jeff!"

I smile at both of them. 

Finally, I have a Dad. For some reason, at that time, I was excited by it. 

Dad smiles back at me, he bends down lifting me up in the air and spinning me then he drops me down. 

Oh, how happy I was!

"Jeff, say hello to your younger sister!"

Jeff just stares at me, His face is squeezed in a frown and his green eyes pour out tears. 

"I don't want you here. You are not my sister...and I don't like you!" 

He shouts at me running up the stairs to his room. Mum looks at me. My brown cat-like eyes was flooded with tears. Her gentle voice says, reassuring me;

"Don't mind him, he's just scared but with time, he would get used to you!"

Again 'pt ff.' 

There was no Jeff getting used to me, not at all. If anything, he got used to torturing and tormenting me. 

Things were rosy at home excluding the Jeff but at school it was horrible. 

My first day at Primrose Elementary school was a rock in the face. Literally, a rock in the face for me, cause one nutty child stoned me.

I walk into the class with my pink bag pack on my back. I remember mum had dressed me in a fluffy baby pink gown. Immediately I step into the class, everyone starts laughing. Madison, a stupid child now I think about it walks towards me. Her irritating voice echoes round the class; 

"Would you be my little dolly?" 

After that comes the real hell and the bullying starts. Apparently, I am bullied because of my doll like appearance and my brown cat-like eyes.

On the second day of my resumption, I come into class late when Miss Riley 'our English teacher! ' had already started teaching. I stand at the door with my pink bag pack hanged on my back.

"Come in, Krystal!" 

I walk into the class with my head down. I had never been the confident type and I hated coming late because everyone would already be in class, and they'll all have their eyes on me. As I walk to my seat which is located at the edge of the class, their constant gazes bore into my skin.

Awkwardly, I sit down on my seat ready to take the lecture for the day when I feel a sharp pencil pierce my butt. I turn back to see the boys behind laughing. 

"Oh my god! She's bleeds too?!.. I thought she was made from plastic!" The class bully shouts.

During break, Some girls gather round my seat, pinching me. I scream back with tears in my eyes. 

"It hurts."

“She's screaming… I didn't know dolls could talk!”

Some other children would comb my hair in class and treat me like one of their toys and when I stare back at them in anger, they'll say; 

“She looks like my cat when she's angry!” 

“Krystal, can you see in the dark?  I heard cats can!” 

It becomes worse after Mum's death two years later because Jeff starts his bullying and torture. The day after Mum's death was my tenth birthday. I stand in her hospital room the whole time until the clock ticks twelve the next day, 'my birthday'. 

Since my tenth birthday, I have never celebrated my birthday. Probably because of my memory of Mum's pale face. 

I watch her white lively face slowly turn pale, her colourful sense of fashion is changed to all black as all corpses are clothed in either black or white. 

Days later once again, I stand in a graveyard with sunflowers in my hands, I keep hearing the same sentence I heard in my mama's burial; 

“I am so sorry for your loss!”

After Mum's death, it was like she died, taking all the colour from the Smith's mansion. No one even bothered to open the windows any more. Papa pulled out entirely and Jeff started bullying me 'openly this time'. He would pick on me, beat me up until I opened my bloody lips to scream back at him, kick me until I surrender in weakness. 

He once told everyone at school that I was an orphan. The children started forcing me to eat their food, calling anything they did for me; “charity!” 

Fed up with the bullying in school and still at home, I knock on Dad's study room. I hear his voice which is drained out of all energy. 

'Come in!" 

I walk into the room, the darkness all around me is blinding. My brown eyes find the pale man sitting behind his desk.

"Dad, Jeff…!" I extend my hands, showing him my red bruises.

For hours, he doesn't say a word, then finally he speaks out.

"God Krystal...everything is not about you. People have their problems too, you know!… God! What do I expect from a beat down orphan?…My wife is the only reason you are in my house right now, Krystal. Do you see her anywhere? She's gone. You are in my house because my wife saw you one evening when she was driving past Joy orphanage. As a child, she was obsessed with dolls, then when she grew up she always wanted a daughter, but after the birth of Jeff she was told she couldn't get pregnant again. So when she saw you, she thought she could fulfil both her dreams and kill two birds with one stone 'A doll ish daughter! " He shouts in my face.

"I don't want a doll daughter. I never did. My wife wanted you around, not me! And guess what?… she is dead! Now try to minimize the fact you are a burden to me and stay off my part! As for Jeff, you are not always the Victim…bear with it! And don't cause any more trouble. Don't disturb me again… Now get out!" He says quickly shoving me away. 

Soon, I become accustomed to the bullying at home too. 

Now that I think about it, did I expect him to choose an orphan like me to his own biological son? 

When I turned fourteen, it becomes worse than hell. I see my period and my body starts curving up.

I would stand by the mirror looking at the changes in my body. 

Guess what? I wasn't the only one noticing it, Jeff also was. 

Once, I come back from school. Climbing the stairs, I hear Jeff talking to two of his friends 'Derek and Edmond. 

They are sitting on the couch watching me climb the stairs; Jeff's voice is very loud as he utters;”No…she's not my sister, We can all share her… it wouldn't be incest”

I quickly hurry up the stairs, locking my door.

Another day, I come back by five after biology class. We were having some sort of project. Walking upstairs, I find Jeff by my door waiting for me. There's some sort of expression on his face; 

“What are you doing here, Jeff?” 

“It's my house…I can stay where I wanna!” He answers still standing in front of my door. I roll my eyes at him then bring my room key out of my bag then I insert it in its lock. The door swings open and I step into it. My hands hold the door knob and I try to push the door close when…

Jeff pushes back from outside my room. I fall down on the ground, and he walks in, letting himself into my room. 

“Get out of my room!” I scream at him standing up. 

“Your room?” He snickers then drags my hand, throwing me on the bed. 

“Let me go." I scream struggling to free myself from his strong grip, but he holds me down, plastering me to my bed. He starts zipping his trousers down… By this time, I start crying, begging, but he wouldn't let me go…