Paisley Quarles : D3 : FIN

It's pretty clear that my father and I are related. Though he isn't my birth father, we do share the same blood. Just by our eyes, you can tell that. We've both got chocolate brown eyes, a bit small, with the longest eyelashes. Our pale, reddened skin is dotted with freckles and dry, red patches. The short, flat nose rounds off the near exact similarities. I've got much poutier lips than he does. As is expected, for a girl.

While his hair is near black, mine is a dusty blonde. It must be from my real father. My hair like straw reaches right above my chest. I've cut bangs into it for a few years now. Well, my aunt cuts the bangs. I got my aunt's height, that's for sure. We both barely reach five feet. However, she's a grown adult, and I sure hope I've plenty more time to grow. We borrow each other's clothes often because of the shared height. She always loans me these big fluffy jackets, and I can't be seen without wearing one.

I'm a dancer. Ever since I was younger, I've danced. I didn't even know what dancing was as a small kid, but whenever my aunt played a tune on the piano, I was up dancing. It grew and grew from there. There's a real lack of space around here, but I managed to make this tiny apartment space work for my practices. I'm real resourceful like that, I guess. Always tryin' to make the best out of everything.

I used to be a real reckless kid. I've learned since then to be careful. Stay away from open ledges, always read the fine print and all that. Got me into a lot of trouble when I was young. I was always accidentally knocking over vases or punching through windows as I danced around our apartment. My father was furious, of course. His constant yelling drove me to become a reserved little thing.

Just because I'm a bit reserved doesn't mean I'm a Debby Downer. I'm always trying to be positive, always. I crack jokes as often as possible. Most of the time, they're just dumb puns like "Why did the ghost ride the elevator? To lift their spirits!" Regardless, they always make people smile, which makes me smile. Even my father smiles at my jokes sometimes.

People are often surprised around me. They don't expect a shy little girl to be so funny, or so optimistic. Nobody expects me to dance, either. It's my favorite thing, to gather a group of people and let them watch me perform an improvised routine. It teaches people that everyone always deserves a second glance. And it gives me an excuse to dance, as well.

When I was born, my father was alone. I'm not really his child in the first place. His sister, who was 17, had me. She felt she couldn't take care of me, so her brother (who was himself only 20) took me instead. He became my father. It was quite obvious he had no idea how to take care of a child. I'd be accidentally left alone for hours at a time, while he was at work. Even now, it seems I don't matter to him.

My aunt came over quite a bit after she found out he'd been leaving me. Although she's technically my birth mother, I don't consider her a mother. Only an aunt. She would always play the small piano my father kept in a corner of our dirty apartment. At first, toddler me would only babble along. Once I could walk and stand on my own, I moved on to dancing as much as a toddler could.

I grew up, went to school and all that. Just like every kid does. Around the time I was 11, my father got sick. He was stuck in bed for months, while my aunt helped care for him. Since he was sick, he couldn't work. Our money eventually ran out, and we were at risk of being thrown out onto the streets.

I wanted to help. I knew how to help. There'd been whispers around school about a computer factory that took in children as workers. They were payed half as much as the adults, and worked longer, but they still got to work. Nowhere else I knew of would take on children as workers. I got a boy from school who worked there to take me. The owner recruited me without a second glance.

My father believed that I was hanging out with friends from after school until long into the night. Truth is, I didn't even get to finish my school day with this new job. The other kids and I snuck out early and went to the factory to start our shifts. This lasted for a year. Every morning when I woke, my head was spinning and my arms ached, but I had to drag myself up.

The tiredness got to me. I fell asleep at my work station one day. My arms splayed out, and it took a mere second for my hand to get pulled into the machine. I woke for a minute to the sight of spurting bone and cracked bone, and then I passed out again.

My hand was irreparable. They took it off in the hospital, and sent me on my way without even a message to my father. Of course these higher ups wouldn't give much thought to an illegally working child. I told my father it was badly tangled in power lines. He's gullible. He believed me. I don't think he would've cared if he'd known the whole story anyway.

No way I was gonna let a missing hand get me down though. I kept on smiling, and kept on dancing. I also kept on working at the factory. Not that I really wanted to. In fact, I was more than afraid something like this would happen to my other arm, and I wanted out. But I'm bound by contract to stay until I'm at least 16.

This dirty, cramped district is no place for a dancer.

codeword: odair
faceclaim: nicole taylor criss