Chapter 1
Mom and Dad always said I was a bad kid.
When I was six, my little sister finished her juice box and tried to grab mine. I shoved her straight to the floor.
At eight, she wanted the stuffed bear my classmate had given me. Mom yanked my arm so hard it dislocated, but I still wouldn’t let go.
In the end. Mom took scissors and shredded my bear to pieces. So I cut up my sister’s new dress.
Dad slapped me so hard I went deal in one ear, then shipped me off to Grandma’s place upstate.
By the time I came back. I was eighteen.
8XP
“You’re the big sister–can’t you just share with Layla?”
“What’s the big deal about letting her play with it? God, you’re so selfish.”
“Are you gonna let Layla play with it or not? I said, are you?”
That three–foot–tall teddy bear was a birthday gift my classmates had pooled their money to buy me.
It hadn’t even been home for an hour before it became a cloud of cotton stuffing scattered across the floor.
There. Now nobody gets to play with it. Problem solved.”
Problem solved?
But why did it hurt so much?
Mom dropped the scissors and walked out, stepping over the mess, carrying Layla in her arms.
No, the problem hasn’t been solved yet!
I picked up those scissors and cut one of Layla’s new dresses from the closet.
That’s what I call solving it.
But before I could make a second cut. Dad burst through the door.
He snatched the scissors away and backhanded me across the face.
Chloe have you lost your mind? Why would you cut up your sister’s clothes?”
Can’t you go one single day without causing drama or picking on Layla?”
That dress was a birthday present from your mom and me.”
You ruined her, so you’re giving her yours!”
My head was inring my ear throbding with pain
Dadi south was opening and closing like he was saying something, but I couldn’t hear it
Quly from los rajaression. I could guess he was endeming me, lecturing me
Big sisters should be grustus Duntoully your little sister
You always hold grudges over the Buest things
Can’t you just grow up?
I knew I was goessing right, because in Mom and Dad’s eyes, I was never god enough
22:23
From Beloved Daughter to Dead Burden’s Now Watch Your
Chapter 1
Maybe they were right
I was stubborn, immature, disobedient.
So getting punished, going without juice–that was my own fault.
so getting hurt, having my friend’s gift destroyed–1 deserved it.
so losing my new dress to compensate Layla–1 had it coming.
But I still didn’t get it.
Didn’t get why I couldn’t drink my own juice box.
Didn’t get why the birthday present my friend gave me had to be shared with my sister first.
Didn’t get why I was the one who lost the bear, lost the dress, got kicked out of the house.
When you figure out what you did wrong, then you can come home!”
That was the last thing Dad said to me when he dropped me off at Grandma’s.
But I never knew what I did wrong.
So for ten years, I never went back to that house.
22.23
