I wasn't sure where to start. I didn't know how much I wanted to tell them. I didn't know how they would react to the news. I stood quietly with my back to them before turning around slowly.
"Maddy, what in the world is going on?!" My mother yelled. Once again I flinched and stiffened instinctively. Her eyebrows drew together in confusion at my actions. Looking down at the ground, I whispered solemnly.
"None of you asked where I was."
"What?" If anything, my mother just looked more lost. I repeated myself more forcefully.
"None of you asked where I've been all day. If you guys cared about me wouldn't that be the first thing on your mind? If I was somewhere safe or not? And Mark was right. None of you asked why I wasn't around today either." My parents didn't know what to say to that however, Josh did.
"Why are you being so stupid Maddy?! First you skip all of your responsibilities the entire day, then you make me do all the work before coming home so late at night that it's ridiculous! To top it all off you just ask a bunch of cryptic questions about why no one took time out of their busy day to find you. What is wrong with you?!" I stared at him disbelievingly. Was he serious? Was he really so hypocritical? Was he really calling me stupid because I acted like him one day in all of my life? Another thought hit me. Cryptic questions? These should be so easy to answer! I shouldn't even have to ask them if I felt needed! It's all their fault! Their fault for ignoring me! Not listening to me! Not believing me when I needed their support! Always dumping their problems on me and expecting me to be okay! I. Blew. Up.
"You absolute jerk! When was the last time that you did anything worthwhile?! When was the last time you helped take care of Zoe instead of hanging out with Skye all day?! When was the last time that you actually got home before eleven and didn't scare me because I thought, maybe this is the time he's not coming home?! When was the last time that you didn't spend the entire day complaining about being in Terra Nova instead of choking on air in 2149?! When was the last time you didn't make fun of me or insult me when you saw me?!"
My parents looked stunned by this sudden information and turned to Josh. He was to shocked at the sudden anger in my raised voice to defend himself. I was just getting started. "I seem to remember it being the day that dad got arrested! After that you pretty much disappeared off the face of the earth! I had to take and pick up Zoe from school! I had to make dinner and buy groceries and clean the apartment! I had to go to school completely defenseless because you were never there! I had to wait for you to come home every night so that mom wouldn't worry about you and she could get some sleep before working another shift at the hospital! I had to abandon what ever life I had in 2149 so that you could still have one! All those digs about me not having a life? Only true because I was letting you have yours!" He opened his mouth to argue.
I heard my mom mutter, "School defenseless? What does that mean," to herself but I plowed on, ignoring them both.
"And it hasn't changed since! Nothing has changed since we got here! You still leave at all hours of the day! You still abandon Zoe! You still make fun of me! You still go off and do stupid activities just so that mom and dad," I jerked my finger in their direction, "have to chase after you! Have you ever thought about how you're affecting everyone else Josh? Even once?" He didn't reply. The house was quiet until my dad stepped forward.
"Maddy, I think that was a little excessive, besides, I want to know what you meant about school." All I could see was red for a moment before I turned on him with a glare. He stepped back obviously not expecting this.
"A little excessive? If anything that was an understatement! All of that was true!"
"Maddy, that's enough!" My mom shouted. I turned on her next.
"No, no it's not! You're just as bad as he is!" She stumbled back as if physically struck, "you're never home to help with Zoe either! You were always working in 2149! You still are here! And you were always worrying about everything! And I get it, there was a lot to worry about between the population patrol always coming and Josh being an idiot but I didn't have to slip through the cracks, right? I mean, it was like I wasn't there unless you needed me to look after Zoe. It still is that way! Just today you didn't even look at me when you left, you just expected me to look after Zoe! When was the last time that you talked to me about anything? Just me and you, one on one, talking about something that didn't pertain to Zoe?" She didn't answer me either. "That's what I thought. Gosh, and even during that whole situation with Dr. Horton. I tried to talk to you. You just didn't listen. You never have."
"We listened to you at the end." She tried to say. I scoffed.
"No you didn't! Right in the middle of you guys comforting me Josh came up and put that capsule of medicine on the table! Suddenly, me almost dying wasn't important enough to talk about when Josh had done something stupid again! Nothing has changed! Not since dad's been back! Not since we came to Terra Nova! None of you have done anything to change! I thought I could just ignore it but it just seemed to get worse and worse until I couldn't handle it!" I took a breathe to try and calm myself. My family looked at each other uneasily.
"Honey..."
"I'm not finished! Every time I've done something significant, something else has come up that was more important! Moving up in school wasn't as important as the population controls constant visits, and it's true, it wasn't as important," I began to pace, "but none of you even seemed to acknowledge the fact that I was doing anything that could be considered successful! No one ever talked about it! It was just brushed to the side. Or the time that I got that award in school! It was a pretty big deal! It could have led to a scholarship and possibly even a house in the domes but I bet you don't even remember, because while I was trying to tell you Josh came in with a beat up old guitar and overshadowed me again!" I took a deep breathe and stopped pacing before my voice dropped down to so quiet my family had to lean in to hear.
"Even when I was in the hospital in 2149. I was coughing up blood for months before any of you noticed. It was just sheer chance that mom got home from the hospital early that day and I didn't have enough time to hide it." My dad broke in unexpectedly.
"Hide it?! Maddy, you were coughing up blood! Why in the world would you try to hide that?!" My voice picked up again.
"Because none of you guys had cared about me before! I figured out pretty quick that no one would listen and so I didn't tell anyone!", my voice dropped, "Besides, none of us had the money for a hospital visit since mom was the only one working and it was obvious that I wasn't worth wasting the money on. Gosh, and you guys make it seem like you cared so much that I was in the hospital but as soon as we got the offer for Terra Nova it was like I didn't exist again! Everyone went on and on about going to Terra Nova, a second chance at life. My breathing was still so bad I didn't think I'd live long enough to finish my first chance!" My mind seemed to fly out the window at my next statement.
"I've literally been crying all day trying to convince myself that maybe you care in some twisted way but I couldn't. All I could see were flashbacks of school and how much I wish that maybe I hadn't fixed my re-breather. Then I wouldn't be so much of a burden." I stopped and looked at the floor with wide eyes. I hadn't meant to voice that allowed. That was personal. That was a closely guarded secret that no one in my family was supposed to know. They weren't supposed to know that I had wanted to die. They weren't supposed to know that there were still some days that I thought about it. I closed my eyes and begged that they wouldn't notice my slip.
"Maddy." My dad's voice was dangerously low and I felt tears dribble down my cheeks as my shoulders shook. "What is that supposed to mean?" I knew that I couldn't backtrack out of this. I had dug myself into a rut and now there was no going back.
"E-even before you were sent to prison...school was always a nightmare. None of the other students liked me. They were constantly mocking me and sending these terrible notes in the middle of classes. They would find me in the hallways and shove me into the lockers and throw my backpack and supplies all over the hall. They sent me death threats and pushed me down flights of stairs. They wouldn't let me into class and they would beat me up in the middle of the hallway. Punches, kicks, everything you can think of. It was terrible. I never told any of you because there was always something going on at home. It just never seemed like a good time to bring it up."
"I remember having bruises all over myself practically every day. I still have scars from when it started to get worse, right before we left for Terra Nova. None of you ever noticed though. I think that was what first tipped me off for realizing that none of you cared." Glancing up I could see my family standing very still staring at me. My mom had her hand over her mouth and tears dancing in her eyes. Josh looked shell shocked. My dad had an unreadable expression on his face. I barreled on with the story still sniffling but now trying to wipe the tears away.
"One day, after some of the other students finished beating me up they took my re-breather and threw it against the lockers. I-it shattered into pieces. There were parts lying everywhere," I heard my mother gasp and I knew exactly why. Breaking a re-breather was a death sentence. The fact that someone had broken mine willingly spoke volumes, "I spent the entire day in the library repairing it because I knew that I had to go pick up Zoe and none of us had the money to buy another re-breather. I had to test it out in the courtyard and it didn't work the first time."
"The air literally felt like it was eating away at my lungs from the inside out and that was only one breath. I got it to work the second time for a little bit but after picking up Zoe it stopped filtering. I-I couldn't breath and i-it was terrifying. I walked all the way to the apartment breathing in all that pollution and exhaust. As soon as we got home I fixed it again making sure that it definitely wouldn't break. By then it was to late. The next morning I was coughing and gagging and a few weeks after that I was spitting up blood." I paused hesitant to disclose this information. One glance at my dad immediately made me continue.
"When none of you noticed I just realized that hiding it would be easier. I kept going to school and when the other students saw that I was coughing blood they just laughed and told me that I deserved it. I don't know if you realized it but I stopped talking after that. It just wasn't worth the effort when no one wanted to hear me and it hurt to even open my mouth. And then mom was home that day and I couldn't get out of the way before she saw my hand covered in blood and then I started coughing and suddenly I was in the hospital and you guys were acting like you cared about me and Josh was looking after Zoe and I started to wonder what would happen if maybe I didn't make it. Josh would have acted more like a part of the family. Dad would have been released from jail since there wasn't a fifth member of the family. Zoe would have been able to live her life. There wouldn't be anymore annoying middle child that was using up all the money in the hospital. And then I was released and mom got the offer for Terra Nova. Then I started thinking about how much easier it would be if I didn't exist. There wouldn't have been so much debate as to whether or not we actually could go because dad wouldn't have a criminal record. I wouldn't have been a health risk. Josh wouldn't have fought tooth and nail to stay. Zoe wouldn't have needed to be smuggled in. It all would have been so much simpler."
The room was dead silent. No one made a noise. The only thing you could hear was the rain outside which must have picked up at some point. No one moved. I didn't dare look up from the floor. Now they knew everything. I couldn't bare to see their reactions. They must have realized by now how absolutely useless I was. The only thing I had going for me was a big brain of stupid facts and if school had taught me anything it was that no one wanted that. It was an abomination. I was an abomination. Now more than ever I wished that I had never been born. A quiet opening of the door in the hallway made me pick my head up and wipe my eyes hurriedly. Zoe walked into the room and I could see that she held a paper in her hand.
"Maddy, look what I drew!" She ran over to me and held up the picture so I could see. I knelt down and let her point out everything in the picture. "There's mom and dad and there's Josh! And they're all standing by a dinosaur! They look really tiny next to him." She giggled and looked at me expectantly. I looked at the picture with a fond smile before I noticed something and suddenly my heart felt like it was being put through a paper shredder. I couldn't breath.
I wasn't in the picture.
I forced a smile and looked at her, "It looks great Zoe. How about we hang it up on the fridge so everyone can see it?" She nodded her head vigorously and I stood up moving to the kitchen. I took a magnet from the fridge and stuck the picture up on the fridge and stepped back a bit. Studying it I could see that Zoe had put a lot of effort into making each person look right. Mom and dad were holding hands and Josh was looking off into the distance. Each was holding something that described them. Josh a guitar, mom a stethoscope, and dad a gun. The dinosaur was all of her favorite colors and was eating some leaves. And yet I wasn't in it. In the middle of my examination I could hear shuffling behind me and saw Zoe pulling the others over to see her project. I stepped back to let them get a clear view. They all stepped forward while Zoe babbled on about the picture, but I tuned her voice out. I wasn't in the picture. After all that I did for her and I wasn't in a simple picture of our family. Instead I was replaced with a dinosaur. If that didn't prove how unimportant I was I don't know what did. My mothers voice is what brought me out of my thoughts.
"Maddy..." She trailed off uncertainly. I looked up to see that Zoe had left the room again and that everyone was giving me pitying looks. I couldn't take it. Pushing past them roughly to hide my tears I made my way to the front door and stepped out into the rain. I needed to get out of there. Walking out into the rain I could immediately feel myself getting soaked. I don't know where I was planning on going but I didn't get a chance to figure it out before I felt someone grip my arm and twist me around. Before I had anytime to react I was pulled into a tight hug pressed up against my dad's chest. I fought to pull away and tried to punch him but it was no use. He wasn't going to let go. My fight died out and eventually all I could do was sob into his chest, shaking and gasping. A hushed, "Please tell me you don't still feel like that," met my ears and the only answer that I could give back was, "Nothing's changed." My sobbing didn't let up. I lost track of time but I felt my dad bring me back inside and my mom help get me dried off. When I was back to my senses a little bit I realized I was in my pajamas, sitting on the couch, and being wrapped in a blanket. My dad started hugging me again and I just let myself cry, leaning into his embrace. Everything that I had been holding in for years came out. All the pain, the frustrations, the sadness. Everything.
