My Stepbrother's Dirty Little Secret novel Chapter 38

The Reminder.

I walked to the mirror and stared at myself. I saw my five-year-old self staring back at me with tears in her eyes.

“Read it!”

The voice exploded in my head.

It wasn't my voice.

“What are you, stupid? It’s right there! Look at the letters, Gianna. They aren't moving. You’re just lazy. You’re useless. You’re a waste of space.”

“Your tits make up for the nonsense that comes out of your mouth.”

“Why did I do wrong to deserve you, Gianna?!”

The voices were so loud they felt like physical hands pushing me down. I could remember the feeling of the wooden desk against my arms. I could feel the hot, stinging tears on my cheeks while the boy behind me laughed because I couldn't read the word apple.

“You will do it,” I hissed at my reflection, “You will show him. You won't be the dumb girl, not again.”

I slid down the wall until I was sitting on the cold floor. I pulled off my shoes and socks. My feet looked small and pale in the dim light. I gripped the wooden stick with both hands, my knuckles turning white.

“If you want to act like a certain type of woman to get ahead, who am I to stop you? It fits what I already know about you, doesn't it?”

Raphael’s voice joined the others. I could feel him leaning over me again.

I raised the stick high and slammed it down onto the arch of my right foot as hard as I possibly could.

CRACK.

It wasn't just a bruise. I had gone too far. The skin across the bridge of my foot was torn. And the sight of my own blood on the floor made my head spin, but the pain was worse.

"Oh God," I whispered, "Oh God."

I reached out with trembling fingers and tried to hold my feet, but even the lightest touch made me gasp. I pulled them close to my chest, curling into a ball on the cold floor. I wrapped my arms around my shins and tucked my face into the space between my knees, trying to disappear.

I stayed there in the dark, clutching my bleeding feet, the only sound in the room was the wet, muffled gasps of my own breath. I felt so small. I felt like the little girl in the back of that room again, hiding her face so nobody would see her crying over a book she couldn't read.

I looked up at the mirror, my vision blurry and I saw a tiny girl standing in a cold room, her face red from crying. She was holding out her hands, and they were the same color as my feet, swollen, red, and shaking.

I was supposed to be the one who saved her. I was supposed to be the one who finally made the world stop hurting her for being different. Instead, I had picked up the weapon. I had become the very thing she was afraid of.

"I'm sorry," I whispered.