I Became My Family’s DisasterChapter 2

After that day, the atmosphere in the house changed completely.

I was moved into the tiny, windowless utility room. Mom said Sammy was a growing boy and needed the sunnier room.

She no longer asked me what I wanted to eat. She’d just set the table in silence, putting out two plates, then glance at me and reluctantly add a third.

My father spoke even less. Sometimes he’d come home and see me sitting in the yard, and he’d just stop, turn around, and go in through the back door.

Only Sammy would occasionally peek at me through the crack of the utility room door, his eyes filled with a strange curiosity, as if he were observing some kind of freak.

Before, I was the treasure they had spent eighteen years doting on.

Now, I was the scapegoat for everything that went wrong.

The faucet was left dripping. My dad’s brow furrowed, his voice stripped of its old warmth. “Did you do this on purpose? Wasting water! Do you have any idea how much the bills are? You’re such a burden!”

“Dad, I really didn’t…”

“Don’t call me Dad!” he yelled, then turned and walked away.

Sammy failed a test by one point. “It’s all your fault, wandering around the house, distracting your brother! We were supposed to have peace, and you ruined everything!”

Dinner one night was a little undercooked. My mom slammed her fork down. “It’s because you’re still here! Cursing this house with bad luck! Even the stove is against me now!”

I stood there, helpless, my eyes burning as tears streamed down my face. “I thought I was going to die, too,” I whispered.

The breaking point came when I flipped a light switch, and the bulb flickered once before dying completely.

My mother exploded. “You jinx! Ever since you passed eighteen, everything in this house has been breaking! You’re a curse!”

“Eighteen years! Over six thousand days! Your father and I counted every single one of them while we raised you! We gave you everything, and Sammy got nothing! We prepared ourselves to say goodbye, we practiced it in our minds over and over again… but you…”

She didn’t finish, but I understood.

Their eighteen years of sacrifice, their careful nurturing of a life with a deadline—it had all become a sick joke.

It wasn't that I was alive.

It was that they had lost their investment. The sacrifices they made, the things they’d denied my brother, the suffering that was supposed to end with my death… it was all for nothing.

I thought if I worked hard enough, if I swallowed my pain and tried to make up for my “mistake,” my parents would soften. They would remember how much they used to love me.

I took over all the housework. Laundry, cooking, shopping, cleaning. I was more diligent than any maid, preparing varied meals and keeping the house spotless.

But no matter what I did, I couldn't earn a single kind word or a smile from them.

I grew thinner, my face gaunt and pale.

The neighbors started to notice. They’d whisper amongst themselves.

One of them, Mrs. Gable, tried to reason with my parents. “Don’t be so hard on Annie. She’s your daughter, after all.”

But my mother, in front of everyone, spat back with disgust, “We wish we’d never had her. She’s a monster, a bad omen who ruins everything she touches! As long as she’s here, this family will never know peace!”

My father stood beside her, nodding. “We raised her for eighteen years. We’ve done more than enough! Now she’s just a leech, dragging us all down!”

Their words were like knives, twisting in my heart until I could barely breathe.

Every little problem in the house became a reason to attack me, but it was what happened with my brother that was the final blow.