Photograph

I clutch the photograph tightly in my hand, trying to force back the tears. ‘Why didn’t these bloody things come earlier, when I was trying to pretend to care that my great grandmother just died? Why now?’

My biological mother (referred to as Kate from this point forward) had taken me upstairs to look through photographs with her. She had been doing so with Sammi, my biological sister, before, but Sammi left for a sleepover. So Kate dragged me back upstairs with her so that she could show me pictures she was trying to use to help make herself cheer up.

I was doing a fairly good job of acting like this mattered to me, laughing when necessary, saying, “Oh yeah!” at other times. That is, until I see this picture. This one, small, not-even-the-size-of-half-an-ID-card photograph of my other biological sister, Caitlin, is all it takes for tough, strong, feminist, DFWM seme me to start crying.

Only one though runs through my head. ‘I’m so ugly.’ Okay, that’s not completely true. I also thought, ‘She’s so pretty,’ and ‘Why can’t I be more like her?’ I’ve been called by her name enough times. But I don’t look like her. I’m so much uglier, and she’s never had acne issues like I have.

I look in the mirror. How could I ever be mistaken for someone so magnificent? The eyebrows are the same, but that’s the only thing.

Only Caitlin, with her natural beauty, looks stunning in all of these pictures. She never has food smeared all over her face like I did, and her facial expressions don’t look forced like mine do. Plus, she actually pulls off one of our grandmother’s dreaded “pixie” haircuts and makes it look good!

Meanwhile, there’s me. Strained, forced, phony smiles plastered on a round, fat, ugly face, a girl in outfits that look like they were pulled straight out of the pits of hell, reminding me not of the good times Kate seems to think of, but rather of how much of a brat I used to be...and still am!

Caitlin used to tell me I was a brat. I used to dismiss it as her being a mean, bullying bitch, but now I see...she was right all along. I am a selfish, greedy brat. Less so than I used to be, but a brat none-the-less. But Caitlin...No, she’s never been a brat. A bit troubled, yes, but she has always been better than me.

She’s so smart. She always got such good grades, and she’s fluent in Japanese! Me...I’m studying French. It doesn’t really matter what my grades are; Japanese is harder for most English-speakers to learn than French. Caitlin, she wins awards and scholarships to study in Japan with her language skills. Me...I get to go to France and Spain...with every other French and Spanish student at our school who paid. I’m not special like her.

Caitlin is stronger than me. I’m such a wimp. She used to be on a wrestling team, and she won medals. Me? I’m lucky if I can pin Sammi to the ground! When I was in third grade, sports and games were just an excuse for my classmates to push me into the dirt, hit me in the face with a ball, or otherwise beat me up. I detached myself from physical activity quickly, as you can probably guess. Not exactly healthy, but that’s just another way Caitlin is better than me.

Sure, Caitlin doesn’t contact the family much anymore, which Kate hates, but it’s better than what I plan to do. Caitlin doesn’t plan to completely abandon her family, like I do. In fact, I wasn’t completely truthful when I said that I would take the first escape from my current life that I saw. I thought out carefully one such flight, and that’s probably why it was not used.

My thought was to convince my parents to let me stay with a friend for a few months, then let me move in with that friend if I decided I liked it. And if I really wanted to get away from them, then I would then switch to another friend’s house, making sure my biological family didn’t know whose.

The problem I realized was that most of my friends wouldn’t approve of this idea, and the rest of them have enough going on in their life that even if I got a job to pay for my own food, I’d only be a burden.

I have always been a burden. Once, when I was in third grade, I figured out just how much of a burden I was, and I tried to attempt suicide. I gave up when I thought about the fact that killing myself would only make me an even bigger burden because my parents would have to pay for the funeral. There have been a couple other times when I have tried to do it again, with the same results.

I wish I could be as talented and lovely as Caitlin. Did I mention she’s good at drawing and writing, too? Unlike me. I know I’m better than some people (like people who can only draw stick figures), but I’m still really terrible at drawing. My writing really sucks, too.

And all this returned to my mind because of a stupid photograph. Despite my best attempts, the tears fall from my eyes, hitting the dusty wood floor.