Okay, I have no clue where this idea popped up. I really should be writing/uploading my other stories, or working ahead on my homework (I'm done all the ones due tomorrow :D ) but noooooo … I'm posting this. Oh well ;)

Happy reading!

Loneliness and the feeling of being unwanted is the most terrible poverty. ~Mother Teresa

Screams. Guilt. Rage. Helplessness.

The feeling of being unwanted. Being worthless. Feeling that if my mother sold a one-of-a-kind Coach handbag worth thousands of dollars, along with me, separately, I would be sold at a cheaper price. As if human life is worth less that a piece of fabric; a very expensive one, to say in the least, but nevertheless, a piece of fabric. I, a living being, and it, a materialistic object.

The feeling that I am a mistake. An unwanted, worthless mistake. The result of a wealthy woman and her lover's love entwined, together, not caring about the consequences.

The house may be large, comfortable, and spacious, but it lacks warmth. Even a palace made out of ice would be warmer than this place. My life is living hell. What kind of person would do this? My guardian would. My poor excuse of a mother. Everything expensive she owns—or models, and keeps for a little while before reselling it—she holds high up, its cost worth more than a life. I, as she sees it, is lower than a worm's.

I am her flesh and her blood. How can she do this, to the one that she swore she'd love?

Can anyone please help me?

"I told you not to!" My mother screams at me. She does this to me every day. Every single day. It's like a routine, almost. A very traumatizing, shocking, disheartening routine, but still a routine nonetheless. Routines can be good or bad. Most simply associate it with the good, that's all. So then, why does it kill me every single day? That I dread arriving home each day from school? Should I be used to this by now?

No. I am not used to it.

I stay silent, biting my lip and willing the tears not to fall. I clasp my hands together, gazing at the wall, where expensive paintings and trophies reside. Not looking at anything in particular, just … trying to drown out the words coming out from behind me.

"I told you not to touch the bag! Do you even know how much it costs?! Do you?! Do you?!" she shrieks, grabbing a nearby celebrity magazine and, rolling it up, whacks me in the head with it. "You are worthless, Beatrice! I am ashamed to even call you my daughter! You know better than to touch that bag! You just ate that burrito! There are crumbs, probably bits of beans, cheese … UGH! The purse is ruined! It's worthless now, like you! Beatrice! Do you know what a downfall this is to my income?!"

I stay silent, never looking in her direction.

"ANSWER ME!" she thunders.

"I … I didn't touch your purse," I whisper. "I swear."

"Don't you dare lie to me, young lady." She says in a warning tone. "I saw it happen," she continues in a deadly voice. Her voice rises. "The crumbs! It ruins the purse! It may get into the seam and affect the purse's cost! It isn't perfect anymore!"

As she continues her rant on how careless I am and how "she didn't raise me to become a liar", I slip into my room, quietly, and unseen. This has been going on for eight years—if not more. How much more of it can I bear?

Every little thing that displeases her, or involves something with her prized objects, sets her off. Sometimes it's water getting too close to her gold, 9-foot Fazioli piano, one she never plays, but uses simply as décor. Others, like this time, it's a purse, or a shoe, or perhaps a designer dress, worth, supposedly, ten thousands of dollars.

My mother puts her foot between the door and the frame. "Was I done talking yet? I don't think so!" she snaps.

I make no response.

"Open the door, and stand up to face me!" she demands. I oblige. "Everything I do for you … I worked so hard, so many long hours, and this is what you repay me with?"

I internally roll my eyes. She may think that I, at thirteen years of age, eat up her words, gobble them up, but that isn't the case. Years of this kind of treatment has opened up my eyes.

I am not naïve. Not anymore.

"This is not what I repay you with, Nat—" I say.

"Mom," she interrupts me.

"—Mom," I reluctantly correct myself, annoyed. I had stopped calling her 'Mom' years ago. It didn't … feel right. She wasn't—isn't—much of a mother to me. However, she insists that I do call her 'Mom', so I just usually call her 'Natalie' when she is not around. "I did not spill the crumbs—any crumbs—on that $13 000 purse. Do you think I would, on purpose, to get myself into trouble? Heck, if that's what I wanted, I'd ruin something more expensive than that! Like that fancy piano of yours, or something." I mentally slap myself. What a stupid, idiotic thing to say. Now it'll be harder to convince her that I was innocent.

"Do you want to get into trouble, on purpose?!" I hear her exclaim, aghast.

"No!"

"Then explain to me why there are crumbs on this purse!" she demands.

I purse my lips, shaking my head. "I don't know," I say honestly. "And there aren't any on there."

"Well, perhaps they are miniscule! Or maybe they dissolved into the purse already!"

"If they are miniscule, then the purchaser wouldn't be able to see them either! And crumbs dissolving into the purse? That fast? Dissolving? You're defying chemistry, Nat—Mom!" I insist.

She doesn't reply. I hear her four-inch heels click-clack across the tiled floor, fading as she walks further away, each step quieter than the last. I know that this isn't over.

I'm right. "I don't even know why I agreed to raise you!" I hear her shout, frustrated. "I should've just left you in the foster care system when I could've! When your father died!"

My breath hitches. I feel as if I've been punched in stomach. She never said that to me before. At least, up until today, she didn't, that is. I close my eyes and start to even out my breathing. "Well, maybe it's because you love your stuff more than you love me!" I scream, flinging open the door. "If you really did, I wouldn't be so alone in this house made of ice!"

Her eyes narrow. "What did you say?" she asks me, a dangerous tone in her voice.

I snap, "All I'm saying is that I'd probably be better off dead than living like this! At least, if I were dead, I wouldn't have to deal with your screaming and your insults every crappy day! And I wouldn't have to live fully knowing the fact that you love your expensive crap more than you love me!" Unintentionally, the last part comes out as a scream. I slam the door, and sliding my back along the door, I sink to the ground. I bury my face into my hands.

No one knows how I feel. No one. They can't tell, or they don't ask, about my life. Or perhaps, they don't care. I have no one to confide to. I can only hide my sorrow, my guilt, my melancholy.

I can hide my true feelings to the world. But there is only so much I am able to conceal. I can only smile, distract them from noticing. Smile, laugh, joke around, be happy, and say, "I'm fine". Convince the world that I love my life. That I love my mom. That I'm okay.

But that is far from the truth.

Sorry if this is really depressing. I usually write more happy stuff … I think I do, at least? :P

Thanks for reading! Reviews would be greatly appreciated :)

-K