“I hate you,” my mother says. “I hate who you’ve become – this cold, heartless person. I don’t know why you act like this, but I hate it. I can’t be around you anymore.”

“What happened?” I imagine myself asking, an edge to my voice. “What happened?! You fucking happened! You happened, goddamnit! What do you mean, you don’t know why I act like this? For the first sixteen years of my life, you berated me, taunted me, mocked me, insulted me – made me feel like I was barely worth the clothes on my back. You emotionally abused me, and you fucking ask me why I have walls up and I’m not the same naïve 12 year old I was? Why I don’t have a heart? You want to know something? You’re the reason why everything’s wrong in my life! You’re the reason I can’t even trust my best fucking friend, because I can’t trust you. You’re the goddamn reason! Remember when you used to tell me how I was a fucking useless messpot? Remember that time when I was seven and I spilled the syrup and you told me you hated me? Remember when I was overweight and nine years old and you told me I was too fat to wear my new jeans? Remember when I was ten years old and you slapped me for cheating in cards? Tell me, you bitch, do you fucking remember? I cried so much when I was a kid that I grew to recognize the burn of tears before it even happened. I knew before you opened your mouth if this would end in another headache, red-eyed dry throated attempt at strangulation by burying my face in the pillow that night.

“So I gave up. I can pinpoint the time frame. It was a push too far. That car ride where you bullied me to the point of tears over and over again until I was sobbing and begging you to stop but you told me I “deserved it to see the result of my actions” and I “should cry” and how I was cruel and unhelpful and generally the worst child you’d ever had the misfortune of meeting. After that, where I had to run to the bathroom of a Peet’s Coffee and Tea and put my head between my knees in the bathroom just to regain some control – I decided I would never let you hurt me like that. It was your choice. Don’t you get it?? You made the fucking sacrifice. You gave up that happy, innocent part of me – the naivety, the curiosity, the uniqueness, the wide-eyed child that I had been for most of my life – and you got a robot who did whatever the fuck you wanted. Now I do what you ask. I don’t question it. I carry all the grocery bags, do the laundry, put away the dishes and wash the ones in the sink. I don’t argue with my sister. I make my bed and I get off the computer at 10 o’clock. I get a 4.0 and straight A’s and I have friends and a social life. Oh, but I’m the perfect child. You get that perfection at the expense of my personality. But it’s too late to change it now. I will NEVER go back. I may be cruel. It will break your cold little heart, no doubt. But it’s fucking over. I’m DONE trying. I tried for 16 years and now I’m done.

“You lost me. I’m gone. There is none of that stupid little 12 year old left. She’s DEAD to you. I keep her locked away. Maybe I’ll meet someone someday who will coax her out of her hiding place, who will slowly and surely break down the walls I’ve watched myself build. They’re thick walls, reinforced by steel. But you’re welcome to watch as someone else puts a crack in them. I don’t cry in front of you anymore because I’m done. ‘What’s the high without the low?’ There is no high without the low. You taught me that nobody ever wants anything to do with a low. Everything you hated about me I sacrificed. So I took out the facets of my personality that you loved and hated. The argumentative, the talkative, the curious, the enchanted, the charming, the intelligent, the spontaneity. It’s all gone. You made your goddamn choice. Now berate me all you fucking want. Tell me I’m a bitch, I’m useless, that you fucking hate me, that I’m ungrateful, that I’m the worst kid you’ve ever met, that you’ll never put up with me again. All those things that made me cry and burn inside, that made me feel the pain of your blows.

“I’m not going to cry this time. I’ll nod and agree and harbor this hatred inside of myself that will swirl and grow with every word you speak. And then, in two years, I will be eighteen, I will get out of here, and I will never, ever look back. So I hope you’re happy with your choice. Because it’s too late now. Life doesn’t have second chances and you already used yours, a million times over.”

“Tell me what you want,” I actually say, dead inside, waiting for the next shot to hit me somewhere else.