Katherine+W

My memoir (NO TITLE)

Being little is the most wonderful stage of life. When you’re young you are naïve and new to the world. You are fooled easily and you don’t have to do much. You’re lapses is judgment are accepted quickly and no one blames you for anything because you are “too young to know right from wrong”. When you get older you are faced with many decisions and you are no longer naive. You soon find out that when mommies and daddies fight they get divorces, and that siblings can be cruel for no reason at all. When you get lost you don’t get found, and that no one can save you if you don’t try to save yourself. You learn that nobody is perfect especially not your family.

My sister was yelling again. I hated the sound of it; the shattering sharpness of her voice was spat in my direction. Everything she said twisted my stomach and tore at my heart. I hated the sound. On days like this we were far from sisters. Tears stung my eyes as shouted about spending too much time on AIM, and Facebook talking to my friends. //What else am I supposed to do when I can’t talk// you//?// I screamed in my head. The words burned at my lips but when I opened my mouth they were gone. The angry feeling lingered but everything I was about to say vanished, leaving me speechless and without a decent comeback to defend myself. Biting my lip, I stormed off in silence, furiously wiping at my newly shed tears before she could see them.

When we were younger, my sisters and I always did our best to try and please the people around us. For the rest of them that duty to do as everyone around you wants you to loses vigor but for me it didn’t. I was stuck in the five year old “eager to please” mind set, and everyone took advantage of it whether they meant to or not. All my life, I had done my best to please my family. It was easy to satisfy my parent’s expectations because the motto in my house was “Do what we want. Do well in school. Do well in life.” I constantly looked forward to the praise I would receive when I did well, but my grades never seem to please my sister, Natalie. She clearly wasn’t impressed when I did something above my parent’s expectations. She would walk away when my achievements were talked about and not care at all about the “good” things I had done. Soon I no longer cared about what my parents thought about the things I did. Suddenly, the only thing that matter was what Natalie thought. I began to push myself harder so that Natalie would acknowledge me the way she did my little sister when she did well. Part of me would like to say that she was jealous of me, but I know that it would be a lie to say that. She wasn’t jealous—she was cruel. It was as if she enjoyed destroying my self-esteem.

I climbed up the stairs seething. //She has no right to say that to me,// I growled in my head. //She acts like she’s some goddamn princess. Everyone bow down and kiss// her //ass so she can feel good about herself!// My little sister fled into our room as I stomped past continuing my internal raging. //How dare she accuse me of spending too much time on the computer? She’s such a hypocrite! I// hate //her.// I kicked the door to the bottom cabinet as I entered the bathroom for an added effect even though no one else could hear my thoughts. Grabbing a sponge and running it run under hot water, I let loose a slur of profanities in my head that revolved around the disgust I felt for my sister. I was only halfway through cleaning the bathroom when the task had become impossible to accomplish. I was too angry to do a simple chore and it only escalated my fury. Suddenly the image of my smashing her face into a window, over and over again, until she passed out from loss of blood, entered my mind. It felt good, even though wasn’t happening at the moment. She would have glasses shards lodged deep into her skin and the glass would be stained red with blood, as I slammed her face into the window over and over and over— I was crying, I realized as I stood grinning evilly into the mirror. From upstairs I could hear Natalie and my mother fighting—again. And it was her fault. It was her fault she made me feel this way. It was all her fault. //Everything.// Digging my teeth deep into my left hand—the one not holding the sponge—I breathed in through my nose, and attempted to calm down. My tears stopped as I focused on the pain in m y hand. It felt a //hell// of a lot better than everything going on around me. Pulling my hand out of my mouth, I concentrated on the bite mark with silent eyes. The red-hot raging haze that fueled my resentment parted and I could breathe again. //Relax, Katherine. Relax.// I could hear Natalie fuming downstairs and my dangerous temper flared once again. //Why the fuck should I care?// I screamed internally, flinging the sponge into the sink. //Since when has she ever given a damn about me? She’s angry…//big //surprise. SO AM I!// Natalie began to slam things in kitchen, and my mother began to shout along with her. My little sister drifted silently behind me, staying out of everyone way. She was nervous; I could see it in her eyes. She had never seen me like this. No one had ever seen me like this, expect me. I was the one who had to put on mask everyday, and pretend to be happy all the time because I knew my family couldn’t handle the real me—//I// could barely handle the real me. I ran into my room, grabbing CD player, and putting it on high volume but I could still hear the screaming—and the slamming. I felt my stomach twist and curl at the sickening sounds of arguing. I couldn’t stand it, I couldn’t take it. I wanted to be five again—to get away from all the shouting, and the slamming. To get away from my dysfunctional family that couldn’t help me with my problems because they couldn’t even begin to diagnose their own. I was so tired of the constant battle for my sanity in my supposed shelter. Tears slipped down my cheeks as my mother screamed my name. I put my CD player down and turned it off. It was useless to me if it couldn’t drown out the shouting. “KATHERINE!” She screamed again. Sucking in a breath, I called back- “I heard you!”- My voice breaking twice in the process. I slunk down the steps, to the ground floor where a quiet anger had settled over the house. Stepping through the door, I looked around to see my sister still washing dishes and my mother getting ready to take out the garbage. The kitchen seemed dark although we had the lights on. Reluctantly, I picked up a paper towel and began to dry the dishes knowing that Natalie was about to start screaming at me. “Could you dry any //slower//?” She snapped. I jumped back my eyes wide at the sharpness of her voice. “Natalie Annabelle! DO NOT talk to you sister like that!” She screeched throwing the bag of garbage to the floor and I shut my eyes as I staggered backward. A throbbing fury rose from the bottom of my stomach. I should have heard their screaming but my anger distorted the words to the point of which they were slurs of annoying nonsense. “Stop it,” I whispered opening my eyes and lifting my fist. “Shut up.” I brought my fist down on the counter as Natalie continued to scream back at our mother. “STOP IT! SHUT UP! JUST SHUT UP! I //HATE// YOU! I HATE YOU! I HATE YOU!” The words exploded from my heart and my throat as I stood sobbing. When more words couldn’t come to my head I brought my hands to my face and started screaming incoherently. Glaring, Natalie slammed me up against the wall behind me and began to scream my face, “If you hate me so much then GET OUT!” She jabbed her finger to the door. Gasping for air, I ran out the door screaming still. My little sister stood in the doorway of the upstairs bathroom, tears streaming down her cheeks as I dashed into my room and buried my head in a pillow. My head snapped back still covered with the pillow and shrieked my pain into the darkness. “I hate her. I hate her,” I muttered into the pillow as I fell forward on my bed, exhausted from screaming. My throat hurt and I could hear my little sister crying as I drifted away.

“I don’t want to lose you, Katherine.” My mothers voice cut through my heavy thoughts. I blinked my eyes, which were sore from heavy crying and rolled onto my stomach, partially because my arm was sore from lying on my side, and partially because I was sick of listening to my mothers lecture. “I just want to sleep,” I groaned relaxing into the sheets. “Okay, sweetheart,” she whispered, tucking my loose hair behind my ear gently. “But I wish you would talk to me, baby. I don’t want to lose you.” She got up, making the bed rise a little bit, I sighed in relief. She was finally going to let me sleep. Mom turned off the light and walked into my sister’s room. I could hear her crying and growled sleepily to myself. //This wasn’t about her—it was about me! Why does she always have to make everything about her?// A tear slipped down my cheek as I float to sleep, a single thought crossing into my head. //You say you don’t want to lose me but what you don’t realize is that you already have.//