Prologue
I don't know who I am...What I mean is that I don't know where I belong... If I belong anywhere that is... I know who I am, I'm Lyla Michaels. A brainy, quiet brunette, with dark brown eyes that almost seem black and other times gold, my eyes are hidden under medium sized eye glasses that I mainly used for reading. Lately I've been having to use them more and more often to see objects in front of me. I'm 5'4" with long slender legs, which I'd honestly say is the only thing about me I like. I'm kinda curvy but I hide myself under baggy clothes, and in a way I'm not hiding. I just don't feel like I have anything to show compared to other girls.
I belong to a family of four, including myself, with an older brother and younger sister plus a mother. My father died of a brain tumor when I was eight... Now that I look back at everything that happened before he died, I wasn't really close to anyone in my family... My sister, actually my half-sister Sandra, who's now 11, she had my mother. My brother, technically my step brother Daniel, who's now 17, he had my father. My step-mother, Evangeline, she's a piece a work lemme tell you... Since I could remember, she would treat me badly, like I was nothing but a mistake, but in order to keep my father I was part of the package deal. I remember once, my father was at work and it was only my siblings and I with Evangeline home when she decided to "teach me a lesson" for not doing what she told me to do. That was the first beating I remember receiving... I was 4...
My father, he was a great man with secrets. Marcus Michaels, he was a force to be reckoned with. He was caring, loving, funny, and overall happy unless you messed with his family. He had his secrets though... Secrets I didn't even know he had, could have... I don't remember being a part of his family though. When he was on his deathbed I remember standing there, staring at him and how my siblings interacted with him. He was gaunt, with a weak smile on his face telling them he'd never leave them and that he'll always be with them. He looked at me, staring me in the eyes for a few seconds as and after he said that. He had a look in his eyes I couldn't place, and still couldn't for years after. That was the last I saw of him. He died the next morning holding a picture of a woman and me. I never learned who the woman was, I just assumed she was my biological mother.
I was told repeatedly that my mother had died at childbirth. That I had killed her. Of course my father didn't say that, my stepmother did though. I didn't even get to see the picture; when Evangeline heard of the picture he was holding and finally received it, she burned it.
I was just there... The part in between everything... I could disappear and no one would've noticed... After what happened... That's what I did, I disappeared somewhere... Somewhere I can't even begin to explain...