As the youngest of six Half-Blood kids, I was always given the hand-me-downs, clothes, toys, shoes, electronics…damn even the dishware we ate off. My mother didn’t have a lot of money, and all my older siblings were in need of something. One of my sisters refused to wear jeans with rips in them, had to have the nicest makeup, and the newest phone just to think that she could fit in with the group of snot nose spoiled girls in her grade at school. My oldest brother hasnt moved out yet because he couldn’t keep a job due to his anger issues….or maybe its the extensive criminal record of assault. The rest of the kids seem to keep to themselves but still manage to occupy our mother’s attention. When I needed her most, she was busy with someone else. When I wasn’t acting like my oldest sister, I’d get dissapointing stares from her.

Always a last thought. Always had impossible expectaitons to meet. Always held to a double standard. Forever living in their shadows.

Only time I was ever thought about was with my brothers. Late at night, when everyone is asleep, they would come into my room. Strip me of my clothes and then proceed to take turns. This only started a month after my 14th birthday. They didn’t care about my feelings, they didn’t bother wearing protection. They said they’d just kill it if I got pregnant, that this world didn’t need another “me” in it, let alone one with inbred defects.

Even when I was doing everything that my mother and siblings asked of me. Doing the house chores, making lunch and dinner, and still maintaining my slight above average grades. It was still not enough. My mother always complained that I wasn’t like my older sister, that I should be more “out there” with friends I didn’t have.

So I’ve learned to set my own expectations, my own standards, and put myself as my first thought. And now that I’ve moved out of that house everything seemed to be perfect….oh how wrong I was. My mother talks bad about me to the neighbors and her coworkers, my sisters only ever talk to me when they need money, and my brothers……

They still expect me to be obidient.

I got sick of it. Sick of ALL of it. Being the quiet kid had its beneifts. No one expected the kind, obidient, demure daughter that moved 3 states over to come back and do what needed to be done. No one thought to check in on the girl that was stuck in the back of everyone’s minds, that continued to be an after thought in her work and personal life. THE QUIET GIRL THAT NEVER TALKED BACK WHEN SHE SHOULD HAVE. THE GIRL THAT JUST LET LIFE HAPPEN WITHOUT ANY WORDS TO BE SPOKEN FROM HER. THE GIRL THAT NEVER SAID NO OR CRIED FOR HELP.

The girl that has taken care of the problem that live in her shadow.

Fortunate for myself, I’ve left the best for last. The person who didn’t pay enough attention to me because she was too busy with the others. The woman that kept me in all of their shadows, saying I was never going to accomplish anything in life. That I was never going to be as good as my sisters. To just give up.

“You were never loved to begin with.”