Unlike the other kids, who were seasoned campers, I was the resident dumbass who never spent an hour in the wilderness and therefore didn’t know what poison ivy looked like.
Those “leaves” had left enough plant oils to soak into my skin until nearly my entire body broke out into a severe rash that quickly turned to blisters.
I didn’t care how pathetic I sounded. I called my dad, sobbing, begging for him to take me home. He and Blythe were on a cruise, which meant I was stuck waiting another week until they got back. When I had the “gall” to ask why the hell they’d send me there, Blythe started crying, telling my dad that she thought she had been doing me a favor.
“Ali needs more social interaction, and I thought Christian children would be more sympathetic to her anxiety.”
Even if that had been true then, the fact that she’s using it as a threatnowspeaks for itself.
That summer set a new tone going forward. According to my stepmom, I suddenly lacked the “self-sufficiency” someone my age should already have, I “dwelled too much on the past,” I was always “lost in [my] thoughts,” I “always played the victim.”
Blythe insisted I neededprofessionalhelp. I was forced to attend therapy sessions, which gave birth to my stepmom constantly using phrases like “chronic anxiety” and “social phobia” and “familial dependency” to label me.
Whenever I was supposed to meet someone new, she always made sure she’d fill this person in on my “condition” aheadof time. This was supposed to “put [me] at ease,” knowing I wouldn’t have to try and explain why I was so awkward. Teachers stopped calling on me in class out of fear of embarrassing me, and my peers distanced themselves, unsure of what might set me off.
I had always been shy, yes, but I had never been a social invalid. Not until Blythe had made it so.
I know relaying the story could very well set Jase off again, so I opt to tell him about it later…when he’s back home and not within a minute’s walk of strangling my stepmom.
It’s not until his arms wrap around me that I realize just how badly I’m trembling.
And he may as well have split open a dam, because my face ends up buried in his chest as my tears fall freely.
“I just don’t get it.” My voice is so weak I may as well have just mouthed the words. It takes another moment for me to gather up enough strength to say what I’ve never dared before. “She…hates me.”
It’s no secret that Blythe finds me cumbersome, but what I just saw there—the spite—I can’t deny it. I’ll be the first to admit I stand a snowball’s chance in Hell of being perfect. I’ll never be Homecoming Queen, or the lead ballerina of some fancy dance show, or the envy of every girl in town. But I at least made an effort with Blythe. She’s always had a particular way of doing things around here (a way wholly unfamiliar to what previously existed), and I always made sure to abide by the new changes.
I never talked back.
I never questioned her motives.
I never badmouthed her to anybody, not even my own brother.
And yet I can’t ever do anything right by her. Blythe has an endless fuse when it comes to tolerating people…except me. Everything I do ordon’tdo always sets her off.
With every passing year, her lack of tolerance towards me seems more and more like it’s moving into the realm of veiled disgust.
All I can do is focus on the words printed in gold calligraphy on the ends of my black comforter, watching them go in and out of focus as I blink through my tears.
Jase follows my line of vision, looking confused. “‘God will give me justice’?”
I reach up behind me and grab the hardcover volume from the desk, handing it over.
The Count of Monte Cristo.
My ultimate escape.
Somedays, it feels like those five words are all I have. The hope that a higher power is watching, that He will eventually intervene.
Because it’s pretty fucking obvious no one with any real authority will.
Not until my trembling subsides does Jase pull away. His hands are back cupping my jaw, purposely tender, making sure not to touch where Blythe’s fingers had been.
“Fuck her,” is all he says.
I try to smile, try to pull back, but he isn’t letting go, his gaze unyielding.
“I mean it,” he whispers. “Don’t let some bitch define you. She’s just jealous.”
