Red-Headed Stepchild

To clarify, I was not a natural red-headed stepchild.

That's not poetry, that's just a clarification; box dye is cheap for a preteen and the only real sense of radical self-expression one could hope for without a job or legality to get tattoos.

So my hair was red. Cherry-red, actually, cut short in a way I thought was cool but was actually that forties-mom-Karen-cut.

The details are unimportant.

But I remember trying to fix it before non-denominational church on a Sunday morning. I have a chronic case of cowlicks with short hair, and no matter how much water I spread on them from the calcified faucet spout they refused to lie down.

Looking back I guess that wild, artificially red hair kind of completed the 'I'm a mess' aesthetic: I was forced to wear a sleeveless, periwinkle blue dress made of scratchy material that was clearly two or three sizes too small, complete with an equally scratchy taffeta shawl and shoes that made me limp when their too-tight plastic edges cut my feet, smelling like pre-teen body odor and sour breath.

She had made me wear the dress a couple years prior for family photos and even then it'd been too small, tight at the stomach and pinching underneath my arms. My shoes, too - the early 2000's were notorious for those clear jelly heels that left blisters on every foot that wore them in the name of fashion.

I hated that dress. Those shoes.

She'd told me both were supposed to fit girls my age. She told me it made her upset that the zipper strained when she had to force it up my back. She cried when I said it was hard to breathe and told me that she had never met a more ungrateful child.

So there I stood, in a bathroom littered with wads of snot-filled tissues, empty toilet paper rolls, and suspiciously stained boys' underwear. There was toothpaste on almost every conceivable surface, caked on in thick layers. A dark ring laced the inside of the toilet.

The tile floor was sticky beneath my shoes, either from urine or a half-assed cleaning attempt from however long ago, and it pulled at my soles with a wince-inducing 'shhhk shhhk' noise as I shifted and moved to examine that red-flag-hair.

It didn't matter. No amount of coaxing or smoothing would dispel those cowlicks, and the sooner I stopped trying, the sooner we'd get to church.

The sooner we'd get back to the house.

The sooner I could get out of that dress.

The sooner I could retreat to the basement.

That was where I lived, every other weekend and three weeks in the summer. The basement was finished, at least on my side, it had a TV, and it was the biggest bedroom in the house-- those had been the benefits of having a basement room, of course.

But the basement was dark, windowless. It smelled like dust and damp every day of the year and was constantly plagued by the sounds of movement up above, the creak of floors and the hum of the central air.

The carpet was cheap and hard, the paneling was cracking off the walls, constantly plagued with spiders and creepy crawlies that left cobwebs in corners and blended in too well with the floor.

It was a cell, most days. When my dad was gone on a job or at work, it was an oubliette at the bottom of the stairs, a forgotten place that constantly smelled like stale dog piss and dust, constantly plagued with rogue piles of dog shit that dried into the fibers. It was a place she put things to forget them: too-small clothes, old projects, Christmas décor, a red-headed stepchild...

Other days, it was a sanctuary. When she was in a rage, some manic episode, it was a place to hide where I was unseen and therefore nonexistent. It was a place where I discovered the joy in playing the Sims, where all families were perfect and no one slept in a basement. It was the place I first ventured into the realm of Internet friendships to battle the constant loneliness and belittling. It was the place where I discovered I could write, where I could pretend to be anyone I wanted within the realms of roleplaying.

But usually, it was just a place I was put when I was in the way.

Which was always.

According to her, blood was always thicker than water, and absolutely thicker than a marital arrangement for pre-existing children. I was an extra, a nuisance, an embarrassment. I was too fat, too quiet, too loud, too needy. I was not given a toothbrush. I was not given medicine when I was sick, I was not given shampoo or body wash to take showers with.

Food, of course, was a privilege for the blood children.

When my dad was around of course I was fed with homecooked meals-- one serving only-- and maybe dessert if she felt like showing off how much she 'loved' me.

When he was gone, food was something I hated, but desperately needed, cruelly dangled in front of me like a carrot on a stick. I would've loved a carrot on a stick.

She didn't like to cook when dad was gone. Lunch or dinner were usually from Burger King or Pizza Hut, occasionally McDonald's. Whatever she had used to barricade my door shut was removed to ask what I would like. Never to go along with them, of course. Always what I wanted them to bring back.

As soon as she'd leave, it was time to move. I would grab stale packages of poptarts, sleeves of crackers, things that would not be noticed if they went missing. An extra bottle of mustard. Small spoonfuls of leftovers in Tupperware containers, quickly rearranged to disguise the missing bite. A quickly-defrosted Breakfast on a Stick thrown into the microwave, its clear plastic wrapper shoved to the bottom of the trash can so it'd not be seen when the lid opened.

Back to the basement.

I hid it all beneath my bed, my own little hoard of food to sustain me when the inevitable came. Sometimes, if she was generous or in a particularly good mood, she would remember to bring something back.

More often, she would return without a word, without food, and go back to her bedroom. The hoard came in handy then, sugary carb-filled foods that did not help my obviously offensive weight but kept my stomach from growling.

And yet, despite all the signs she gave me that I did not deserve it, I tried so hard to be loved.

The problem wasn't that I was unlovable; it was that she could not love me. Sometimes she could fool me with it, offer me a hug or pretend to console me, but only where others could see. Only where it stood to improve her image, where those that saw would stop and admire her for being such a compassionate mother to a child not her own.

Bullshit.

I worked for her love. I would spend every opportunity I could-- if I were able to open the door-- trying to help her. I would do dishes. I would clean. I would sweep the floors and scrub countertops, I would pick up the endlessly nasty bathroom where I would fix my hair and wear horrid dresses splitting at their seams, I would do the chores her son hated with no complaints, I would try to entertain my sister, the daughter she DID want.

Nothing ever changed what couldn't be changed.

Nothing ever worked.

Nothing ever made her love me.

So I gave up. I stayed in my basement. I grew cold to my sister, jealous of her upstairs bedroom and her drawers of clothes and her toothbrush and her effortless way of being loved.

I grew to hate my stepbrother, who is deserving of his own trauma-dump for his crimes, and his ability to evade punishment and act unlovable but still hold his mother's heart in his teeth.

I hated myself.

I stood in that sticky bathroom and cried at the cowlicks in my hair, the dried sweat on my skin, the dress that threatened to pop stitches if I inhaled fully, the stomach that had a little roll of baby fat that she pointed out at every opportunity, the nose that was too much like my mothers', the ache of another UTI, the grimy teeth a week unbrushed... Everything.

It was the start of my self-hate, my depression; her hate of me slowly permeated my being and became my own. I was a child, and she made me hate myself.

She made me feel like I was less than a daughter, less than a person. She impacted my life in ways that will never be repaired, that still affect me even now, thirteen years later.

She will always be a shadow in my life, a foreboding presence in my head that always whispers that I do not deserve food, or a toothbrush, or love.

And I'll never forgive you for that, Misty.

I hope you read this. I hope you realize everything you did to a little girl that tried so hard to be loved by you.

I hope you know how you broke her.

I hope you know how that feels, one day.