You Call it Misery, I'll Call it Love

I am not the perfect child. I am far from it. I live in my sister’s shadow, day in and day out. She’s the perfect angel, the daughter everyone looks up to. Everyone except me that is. She just married her college sweetheart, Cody. She just had their first child, my nephew, Cody Jr. As if they couldn’t decide on a better name, they had to go name him after his father, who everyone thinks is quite brilliant because he’s a dentist! How hard is it to stick you gloved hands into someone’s mouth and scrape their teeth until they’re a shiny clean white? It isn’t!

I am in fact the complete opposite of my darling sister, Jessica. I am ten years younger than her. I am the accident child of my parents’ marriage. I was never supposed to happen. I am a high school senior. I get average grades. I know no one in my school. Or, I should say, no one knows me. I’m just the shadow.

My parents strive to give everything they have to Jessica. A perfect life is what she has. She has money, a husband, a child, a house, everything! And what do I have? I have bruises from an abused relationship. See, my father is a stay at home dad, my mother works hard as a nurse in the NICU. My dad and I are anything but close. We disagree all the time. When I get a good grade, he thinks I got a bad grade. It’s like he wants me to fail. My parents don’t tend to care about me. They think I’m perfectly capable of handling my own affairs, or taking care of myself. They’re always with Jessica and Cody. They practically live at her house. My dad watches my little nephew everyday while his parents work at their dental firm. He spends so much energy on that kid! They play around and do the things that my dad should be doing with me! And the worst part is, Cody Jr. loves my dad!

But when my mom’s still at work and Cody Jr’s gone, that’s when all the trouble begins. My dad’s the worst when he’s drunk. He’s violent, he’s loud, he does everything he can do to scare me. He kicks in the cabinets and then goes blaming it on me to my mother! He leaves the beer cans around the house and puts them in my bathroom, and then goes running to my mom telling her it was me. I get grounded on a weekly basis because of my dad. It’s annoying, it really is.

When my dad gets so drunk, he gets wicked cocky. He calls me pretty and precious and baby and sweetie, all the things he never tells me when he’s sober. I should be flattered, shouldn’t I? But, I’m not. I’m no where near flattered. I’m disgusted. Dads tell their daughter’s that sort of stuff all the time when they’re sober, but not mine.

You want to know how violent my dad gets when he’s drunk? Okay. He’s very violent. On top of kicking in doors and cabinets and any other piece of furniture he can get his hands on, he kicks me. He punches me down so hard that nearly every time, I’m gasping for air. He’s broken my bones, he’s pulled my hair, he’s made my nose bleed so many times I lost count. He’s only taken me to the Emergency Room once. When he kicked my so hard that I feel down three flights of stairs and went sky rocketing through a window. My head was bleeding, my ribs were broken and my arm was shattered. His lame excuse? I tripped! I almost blurted out to the ER doc the truth! But, my dad gave me a look and I shut my trap.

I’ve been plagued by years of abuse. Abuse caused by my drunken father who claims I do everything wrong and am responsible for his mistakes. I have no escape out. Not one friend to rescue me in my time of need. No mother who cares. No sister who notices my all too often red and purple bruises on my soft white skin. I have no body. All I have is myself. Or at least that’s what I thought until I met him. My name is Mary Kate and this is my story.