Was it anger, greed, guilt, fear, hatred, or just plain old insanity? of course, there’s no real answer. Her hair was as dark as some say her soul must have been. Her eyes were as grey as the clouds in the sky that December morning. Her skin was barely two or three shades darker then milk. She was barely a woman, in a biological outlook. But her mind was far beyond her body’s age.

Her parent’s had always wanted three children, girls preferably. By the time she was six, her parent’s had been trying for another child for a few years. Her mother had trouble becoming pregnant, for one reason or another. But finally, it happened. Six months before her eighth birthday, her mother announced that she was three months pregnant. It wasn’t happy news to her, of course. It was worst thing she could imagine.

On May seventeenth, the child was born. As it happens, it was her birthday as well. Her parent’s rushed to the hospital, without a goodbye. Leaving her with the maid, who didn’t even wish her a happy birthday. They didn’t bother to call, to see how things were going. She waited for hours, and hours for a call, or for their car to pull into her long driveway in the woods. But no one came. The maid stayed the night, to watch over her. And she waited as long as she could, but she fell asleep before she heard their car turn onto that gravel driveway.

The next morning, her father sat at the kitchen table, staring blindly at a cup of coffee. His face unshaven, his clothes were the same that he had been wearing when she saw him last. His eyes rimmed red. He didn’t speak when she asked him what was the matter. He didn’t even glance her way. The maid called her into the kitchen, and said very little, but those solitary words brought her very existence to the ground beneath her tiny feet. “Your mother died while giving birth to your new baby sister, Annabelle. It was your mother’s dying wish that your father finds love again, and that Annabelle is happy in her life. And raised as though she really were his child.” Not a word was spoken about her first child, Christine, who was now motherless.

She grew year by year. Her baby sister grew along side of her, she took care of the child. And raised it like her own child. Her father remarried, to a woman named Marie. She was a nice enough woman, a little too young in Christine’s opinion. But she was kind to the children, although she spent too much time on her own appearance, and spent too much time shopping for new clothing, and her nails were kept a little long. Her appearance was impeccable.

By Christine’s fifteenth birthday, the woman had changed everything about her life as she had known it. She was so sick of all the changes and her father and step-mother’s drinking that she became sick with rage. She made their drinks for them when they were too drunk to stand straight, her father always drank rum and coke, and her step-mother’s favorite was vodka on the rocks. One night she over heard her step mother talking about Christine, she was saying nasty, hateful things and her own father was agreeing with them. Calling her lazy, spoiled, and horrificly dressed. The anger and oppression of the past seven years had finally broken her spirit and her will to accept her new life. Marie was unluckily a diabetic, but luckily for Christine she knew exactly how to work with that. Marie needed those pills that regulated her sugar, and what if by some magic those went missing?

She began to dress like her stepmother had always wanted her to. Her makeup was impeccable, she went on shopping trips with that wretched woman too. They began to “bond”, to her it was hilarious. She still played bartender, making them their drinks. Often times, Marie would say “dear, can you fetch me my pills? Oh thanks, you’re a doll” and she’d wink, that wink was what got her. She wanted to stab her and pull out her tongue through her neck.

She hoped that the day when it truly seemed like they were sisters, would come soon. She planned to do this on her sixteenth birthday, they planned her party together. It was to be a giant birthday bash. Now that the party had begun of course step “mummy” dearest had already had her first drink. After all the guests had left, she made her more drinks and they sat around in the family room and laughed and laughed. She asked her to grab her those pills, and of course she obliged laughing silently as she went into the kitchen. She came back and gave her more drinks and the pills.

But she also knew that she needed her medication especially today, because of all that she had eaten. Her sugar would be very high, and the sugar she added to her vodka on the rocks wouldn’t help. She began to feel lightheaded and ill. But she convinced her that she just needed to take her pill, of course she forgot she’d already taken one. She brought her back the bottle and sat it next to her. And every time she complained about being sick, she told her to take another. Her father had already passed out from being too drunk. So she was in the clear. After the entire bottle of pills was gone, she walked herself up the stairs and crawled into bed happy as ever.

The next morning she was awoken by sirens and she sat up slowly and began to prepare herself for the acting she was about to do. She ran down the stairs and screamed when she saw her step mother on the cot being taken away. Her face was already white. She saw her father sitting on the couch crying and she went to comfort him with a huge hug and a false “What happened daddy!?” He explained how she must have overdosed on her pills and that it was all his fault for not taking her to bed before he passed out.

She sat on the balcony the night after the funeral laughing and smiling into the sunset. Knowing she had done something horrible, and yet; she felt no remorse. The woman had no right living, really, she was doing a noble act for the rest of the world. She deserved an award.