Then Mom turned to me, her eyes bloodshot and blazing.
"Why isn't it you?" she spat. "Why couldn't it have been you, Lillian?"
"When I was pregnant with you, I thought for sure you'd be a boy. But no, you turned out to be another girl, and not just any girl, a colicky, impossible nightmare of a child!"
"Up all night, every single night. Still needing to be nursed at eighteen months! If it weren't for you, I never would have lost my job!"
She was right about one thing: Mom despised me. Always had.
According to her, Laurel had been a perfect baby from the day she was born. Ate, slept, ate, slept. Never caused a moment of trouble. Because Laurel was so easy, Grandma and Grandpa Sally and Andrew were happy to come help out. Once Laurel was a little older, Mom went back to work.
Then, when Laurel turned three, the grandparents started pushing for a grandson.
So Mom, buckling under the pressure, got pregnant again. With me.
To make sure the baby in my mother's womb was a boy, my grandmother had shelled out a small fortune at five months to have someone check.
A boy. Confirmed.
Except when I came out, I was a girl.
My grandmother's face went cold. My grandfather sat in silence, chain-smoking. Nobody wanted me.
And I happened to be a fussy baby. The slightest thing would set me off wailing.
"A waste of money is nothing but trouble," my grandmother said. My grandfather complained I was too loud, that I disturbed his sleep.
The two of them packed up and left. Just like that.
My mother had to look after both me and my sister on her own. She had no choice but to quit her job.
She stayed home as a housewife after that, all the way until I started elementary school.
But by the time I started school, she'd been out of the workforce so long that no one would hire her. Even pulling strings, the only jobs she could land were backbreaking and barely paid anything.
She worked during the day. At night she came home with a face like stone and took out every ounce of frustration from the office on me.
I knew from a young age that my parents played favorites. That they didn't want me.
So I tried. I tried to be obedient. I tried to get good grades. I tried to be better.
But no matter how hard I tried, I wasn't worth a single strand of my sister's hair.
The truth is, I hated them.
I hated my parents. I hated my sister. I hated the world.