A/N: A revised repost of my Too Good to Be True story, which will soon be deleted from the site for reasons explained on my profile. Please enjoy the revised edition, and review at the end, if you please.
Part One: Kim
Liana Callaway-Connweller suffered from the symptoms of having four children, an idiot brother, a wildly reckless and irresponsible sister, one impressionable and introverted niece, one timid and shy nephew who never spoke, an irresponsible ladykiller of a "sort-of kind-of but not really brother-in-law", a high-strung shrew of a sister-in-law, a clinically demented grandmother who never shut up, an abusive drunk of an ex-husband she half expected to show up and steal away her children one of these days, one friend who hated her sister, one crazy-ass boss who never got off her back, a whole bunch of ungrateful clients she had to deal with, and a bunch of other people she'd once liked but no longer had the energy to deal with. Ever.
Motherhood should be a clinical disease, in Liana's opinion, just like sisterhood and parenthood and having nosey neighbors and clingy relatives should, too. She certainly thought it worthy of some sort of prescription medication (and certainly she was allowed to take a healthy dose of alcohol at the end of each day; it was necessary just to cope); it was enough to drive any normal person up the wall, considering that none of any of these people really bothered to ever lift a finger to help her out (so ungrateful). After all, somebody had to pay the gas and electric and water bills, and get homeowner's insurance and health insurance, and buy school supplies and college tuition funds, and food and take her kids to the dentist, and pay for science programs and soccer training and beauty pageants, and maybe look at retirement funds (it was a pipe dream, but she hadn't quite given up on it yet).
Of course, Liana wasn't normal; she hadn't been, ever. She was better, she was smart and resourceful and determined and talented and beautiful, and if one mistake hadn't tied her to Chad Connweller and La fucking Push for the rest of her life, then the dead-end reservation, her stupid family, and everybody else would have been history, 'cause she was going Somewhere. Capital-S Somewhere. Not many Rez kids made it there.
Thank God her eldest daughter Laura was exceptional, too. She was certainly one of the most beautiful girls on the reservation, prettier than even the Black twins and maybe a little less beautiful than Leah Clearwater. Everybody thought so. She could go far with a face like that, people reasoned, and Liana thought that a modeling career was ahead of Laura, should she go to Los Angeles or New York.
And if one were to talk about exceeding all expectations, well! Liana could tell you that her youngest daughter Aurora was almost a genius. There was no other word to describe her, what with her taking college-level courses her freshman year online and breaking academic records at La Push High School. Liana knew an Ivy League school was simply screaming little Rory's name; or maybe Stanford, or MIT…it was a tough call, but, hey, there's always grad school, right? The kid practically had academic scholarships lined up for her.
And not to mention Liana's youngest kid, Alexander; Rory's twin brother. The athletic prowess of Alex Connweller was legend in La Push; the kid had been swinging bats and shooting baskets since he could walk, and whenever Alex tried a sport, he was instantly good at it. He took a bus to Seattle every weekend so he could take part in the elite Olympic Development Program for soccer, all day on Sundays. Colleges were already scouting his games even though he was only a freshman, and if he played the way she knew he was capable of, then he would be guaranteed a spot on the under-18 national soccer team.
And then there was Kimberly. Liana's mouth always twisted unpleasantly when her second eldest daughter was brought up in a conversation. It was just…
Kim wasn't beautiful like Laura; in fact, she was rather plain.
Kim wasn't smart like Rory; she was studious and worked hard at school, but the girl had to have some sort of a social life! She was practically a hermit.
Kim wasn't athletic or even talented like Alex. She was vanilla; sweet, plain, and ordinary.
She wasn't going to capital-S Somewhere. She wasn't even destined for getting knocked up in high school and tied to La fucking Push. She'd probably grow old, bitter, and alone, work the dusty old library and own ten cats, and die a husbandless…loser. Perhaps it was harsh to say of one's child, but it was a harsh, cruel world out there and somebody needed to knock that into her daydreamy daughter.
It was pathetic, and Liana's life functioned best when her children could carry their own.
Well, there was a bad apple on every family tree, wasn't there?
A/N: Thanks for all the support of the (original) readers of Too Good to Be True.