Daddy's Little Girl

I lunged my dirty, old, ripped up, navy bookbag across the room and sat down on the bright yellow, kitchen chair. I buried my head in my arms on the table, and my long, dark hair strewed over my arms. I had a horrible migraine, it felt like my brain was pounding on my skull to get out, like ketchup slowly pouring out of a bottle. I didn't exactly blame my brain, seeing as my day hadn't really been amazing. My whole day, in fact, had been horrible.

My clothes were sweaty and sticky from soccer practice, I now smelled because of it, but I was too tired and irritated to care. I failed 2 tests, my best friend was mad at me for absolutely no reason and my ex boyfriend kept starting rumours about me that were impossible to shake off. Now my mom was on the phone and just wouldn't shut up. She was talking to her new fiancee. They met through the Personal Ads in the paper, once upon a time when Mrs. Buschard was a very desperate woman. She was laughing, flirting, twisting the curls in her fake red hair, and I just couldn't shut the annoying sounds out of my head. My real father had been gone for about 7 years, but I could care less. I didn't know where he was, nor did I have the slightest intention of figuring it out. Rude, but true.

I couldn't understand why, but I just didn't care where my father was now or what kind of life he was leading. He could be living in a little cramped house with barely enough money to buy food for the week, no job and an alcoholic. Something strange in my mind just didn't seem to care. I'd gone this long without him, what harm could it do to go a little futher? But something else I couldn't understand was why I didn't care about my old dad, but why I did care about a new one possibly taking his place. There was no place to be taken, really, as my old dad was never there, but perhaps it was just because I didn't want anyone else living with us or trying to control me. My mom did that on her own effeciently enough. So, I now had a vendetta against my mom's new fiancee, to prevent him from living with us.

I kicked off my cleats, and chucked them to the corner of the kitchen, and mud splattered the entirety of that corner. Thank goodness my mother didn't notice. At least one good thing came of her being on the phone.

I blindly passed my mother who was laying on the couch without saying a word, and trudged up the stairs to the second floor, into my small, very purple room, flopping down on my twin bed. I turned on my radio as loud as it could go and closed my eyes, trying not to think about anything or anyone. I didn't think my mother even noticed me come in the house yet.

My window was open, and from it, a soft breeze played calming notes across my expressionless face, cooling me down. I sighed and shut my eyes, tryning not to think, not to hear, not to feel, not to do anything. What was the point anymore? As far as I was concerned, my life was already dismal and pointless for the time being.

For 20, dreamless minutes, I was able to rest. But I could feel myself coming back to conscienceness; There was a loud banging coming from below me. Continuous, and it echoed. My eyes opened, lashes flecked with tears that I hadn't meant to produce.

I poked my head through the purple, lacey curtains of my bedroom window and stared below, trying to focus on whatever was causing the irritating noise.

My little sister, Alea. She was kicking a big, orange, rubber ball off the side of the wall outside, over and over again. She didn't look that excited to be playing with the ball, however. And considering she was 12, there really shouldn't have been a reason for her to be playing with the ball anyway. But since I had just been woken up, I wasn't really interested in what was wrong with my sister that day, but more interested in introducing my head to my pillow. "Can you quit that already?!" I shouted out the window. Alea merely glanced up at her sister, and went to pick up the ball, sighing heavily and sitting down on the porch.

My curiosity finally got to me, and I couldn't help but go back downstairs and out to the back porch to talk to my sister. I sat down soundlessly next to her, laid my head on her shoulder and stroked her blonde hair.

"What's wrong? You're actin' weird today." I asked, trying to catch my sister's eye. Maybe it was a good thing I came outside, it was cooler there than up in my room. And plus, it seemed to ease some of my stress away, as smoothly as the clouds moving in the sky, which was a soft, baby blue, with big, fluffy clouds. Yeah, this definately helped with my stress. Getting excited about big, overgrown clouds. The wind that had seeped through my window earlier was even more noticeable out here, making the grass and the sisters' hair dance as it blew by.

"It's nothing." Alea whispered after a few seconds, averting her gaze from mine. Alea didn't look as entranced by Mother Nature as I was.

"No, tell me. I think I'll be able to relate." I said, getting back to more serious matters.

"Fine. I'm just nervous about Greg moving in once they're married. I like him a lot, but I dunno if I'm ready to have him move in, ya know?"

"See? I know how you feel, that's part of what I was thinking."

"Oh, yeah right, Clarissa. You don't give a damn what they do." Alea stood up, looking like she was about to leave.

"Who said that?" I asked, surprised at Alea's sudden mood swing.

"You did, a hundred times!" Alea started screaming.

"No, I didn't. Shut up," I responded, trying to use a calm voice. All the beauty of nature in my mind seemed to disappear now.

"Yes, you did, and you still do. You always say that you don't give a shit about what happens with our parents."

"That might be what I tell you, but that's not literally what I mean. Ugh, do I really have to explain it to you?"

"Yes." Alea said stubbornly.

"Okay, what I mean is, I just don't want those 2 together. And it's embarrassing whenever she talks about him, I can't stand it, I don't know why. But I don't want our old dad back either. I just don't want anybody else to come living with us or anything or trying to tell us what to do."

"That's...kinda selfish. So basically, you just want mom to be alone and unhappy her whole life?"

"No...." I answered, starting to think that I really was being selfish.

"That's what it sounds like."

"She'll have us! She doesn't need a guy! It's not like Greg loves her. She thinks he does but he doesn't, I can tell."

"What d'ya mean?"

"Okay, you're 12, so I'm not sure if you'll understand it, but there's a certain thing that guys like about--"

"I know, but is there anything else?"

"He always tells her what to do. He has to have it his way or no way. Everything we do with him, is planned by him. And whatever it is, it's never fun. He only does it 'cause mom complains he doesn't do anything fun with us. And whenever mom calls him over to do something with us, he's always 'busy'."

"So? That could just be coincidence."

"And you could just be naive."

"Ya know what? I don't need this right now, I don't need to hear your voice right now, so just please stop talking and go away," Alea asked.

"Yeah, 'cause you have so many problems."

When I walked back in the house, I heard an echo that sounded like an orange ball being bounced repeatedly off a wall for the 2nd time.

"Hey, what were you and Alea yelling about?" My mom, Nina, asked, hanging up the phone.

"Well, straighten it out before Greg gets here."

"What? He's not coming over."

"Uh...Yeah, he is. In an hour."

"He's rejected your invitations every other time, why the change of heart?" I asked, not really caring about my tone of vocie at the moment.

"Shut up! He's coming in an hour, get your ass upstairs now and get ready!"

"Hour? I don't have an hour. I'll just see him like this." I said smugly, jogging back up the stairs before my mother could protest again.

And, as promised, within an hour, I was sitting on the couch watching TV and eating ice cream, spilling some on my dirt covered soccer uniform, my hair still a sticky mess, clinging to my face, while Greg walked in wearing something close to a suit, and Alea and Nina were looking picture perfect.

"Wassssssssssssssssssup!" I screamed, holding my ice cream spoon in the air, waving it around. "Want some? Too bad."

"Stand up and try to look presentable!" Nina hissed, dragging me off the couch by me forearm and over to the door.

"Hello, sir. How are you this evening?" I asked Greg, curtsying.

Greg merely raised his eyebrows at me, and gave Nina a kiss. Both my sister and I stared at them, then went to sit on the couch, away from them.

"Okay, well, I have a present for Greg, so I'm gonna go upstaires and look for it. I lost it earlier, so it'll take me a while to get back down here. Could you all go and help in the kitchen for dinner? I'm sorry it's not done yet, sweetie, but we planned so late."

"It's okay..." Greg said in his deep voice, looking at the kitchen wearily.

Nina smiled and ran upstairs.

In a few minutes, Greg and Alea were dicing onions together and talking while I just sat at the table doing nothing.

"You know me and your mom are gonna get married, don't you?"

"Yeah." Said Alea, smiling. She sure seemed to have had a change of heart in that tiny hour that just passed.

"And you're okay with that, right?"

"Yeah, I'm fine. I want a dad to live with us anyway."

They then heard me laugh, and Greg turned around to look at me, though Alea did nothing, still chopping up the onions with her knife.

"What's funny? Are you not okay with it, Clarissa?" He gave her a strange look when he said this, and she returned it.

"What's there not to be okay with? You're using our mom." I said, standing up and walking over to stand behind Alea so she could talk to Greg, face-to-face.

"What? Where did you get that from?"

"From you, of course. You always make her pay for everything, you only want her for sex, you never wanna do anything with us." Greg was still looking at me with the same weird expression. Alea just stood there, but she started to tense up, and she stopped chopping onions, just holding the knife tightly in her hand.

"What?! Where do you keep getting this stuff from, Clarrisa? I only don't take you places and do things with you when I don't have money."

"Ah, that explains it. You never have money, you must be a bum. Great, that's even better than my mom dating a back stabbing dick of a--"

"Will you shut up already?!" Alea screamed, and as she turned around, her hand swung through the air, holding the knife still.

And I immediately 'shut up'. Within less than 5 seconds, I felt the quick peircing of a blade against my skin, the quick moment full of panic, I didn't have any time to react, but I didn't feel any numbness after the blade cut me. For it slashed right through my throat.

I didn't feel the blood, nor see Greg or Alea's faces afterwards, nor see my mom's when she came back downstairs, only a second later, to see her own daughter lying on the ground, blood seeping from the long cut in her once smooth throat.

I bet Alea regrets telling me to shut up now.