pride-and-joy hoskins {d4} fin

I could outperform everyone else, including my best self,  defuse family bombshells and make heaven from their hells—I could do it over and over again but it would not be enough. 

'I love you' has started to feel like a lie. The meaning is broken. I don't mean the words like I used to, like I know that I should.

They see a falling star in me—but how am I supposed to catch myself without being burned?

If I wanted to burn, I'd rather strike matches against the lessons I've learned. Because lessons can be flammable things, especially the ones you aren't supposed to learn—the ones of grit, grace and glory that involve going against the grain of family wishes to become vicious in a way that could hurt them too.

Danger taught me that one when she left. It's a shame that I can't thank her because she's fucked off, but I like to think that even falling stars can find a way to align, and someday I'll be able to hug her.

Actually, I'd give her a slap for leaving me, and then I'd hug her. I don't really do hugs but exceptions can be made.

I can't blame her for running away. Everyone thinks we have it so easy here: the perfect family, the perfect attitude, the perfect life—yet each day adds a new weight to my shoulders that sure, I can handle, but there's a difference between being coping and being comfortable. Expectations seem to pile on top of each other and of all the lessons I've learnt, none of them seem to have offered a solution to meeting the bullshit, unrealistic goals set by parents with their heads in the clouds.

It wasn't so bad before, I had Danger and Danger had me. And we'd fight like any pair of sisters would, but I knew that she would always be there for me if I needed her. We could bond over how hard things were getting as we grew up, though even our relationship became strained when our parents looked at me with adoration and at her with rejection. Perhaps that is just what happens when you're the youngest child—maternal and paternal instinct kicks in and before you know it, you're held on the highest pedestal possible despite fucking up numerous times yourself.

They always found a way to justify my wrongs. When I'd go out drinking with friends, or get into fights with guys at school, it was always a case of being at the wrong place at the wrong time. If not that, it was just pressure forcing me to crack—which they found admirable because they could see how badly I wanted it, how badly I wanted to achieve and do all this shit for them even though it wasn't always working out. I think it was at that point they realised they could say whatever they wanted and I'd try to make it a reality. No matter how big the dream, no matter how scary it sounded—I wanted to do it. Now I'm just a collection of traits they have hammered into me the hard way. I'm the career they forced me to become: cold to the touch, aflame inside.

So yeah, nice job Dave and Carol. They haven't learnt anything from Danger leaving, instead they have just bundled their feelings towards her with mine and I'm dealing with twice as much crap. Cue the applause, congratulations to them for turning me into a power-hungry, concrete bitch. I am a sign of the times, and I hope they are happy with the legacy they are creating.

They are taking what is beautiful within me and cutting it into sharp little pieces. Jagged and serrated: my softness has been turned to a thousand tiny daggers. The most brutal nature has been nurtured. And the entire world sees a sweet, little version of Carol that is an honourable daughter but they do not know the anger that lurks beneath. The anger that is desperately waiting for the right moment to catch fire and revel in the ashes of the family empire trying to be built.

Maybe burning wouldn't be such a bad thing.

I think about it a lot. How much of a picture their faces will be when their golden child turns red all of a sudden, when the star within her finally falls and wrecks havoc in the world around her. I wouldn't give a shit if they were sorry, I wouldn't care and I wouldn't want to hear it. They could have told me that when Danger left and a difference could have been made. They could have told me that when I still loved them, and I might have found an ounce of heart to forgive them.

That's gone though, and now, my dreams are their cries.

I'd've fucked them over already if I knew it wouldn't disappoint them. Because that's the thing I can't bear—knowing that I've let someone down, the burden that comes with screwing someone over and the subsequent sinking feeling because it means I've failed myself too. It doesn't make sense because I'm a career, hard-ass and cut-throat, I know that, but it doesn't have to make sense—trauma just happens, it doesn't wait for someone to understand it first. That's another lesson I've learned.

I guess part of me likes being the golden child because despite the pressure and expectations, it's the one constant. Danger is gone, and compared to her, no matter what I do—I'm their number one. Nothing in life is perfect and nothing will ever be perfect, so I guess coping with what I have isn't that bad.

A lot of people have it worse. I mean, fuck knows how Danger is doing.

A mother's pride, a father's joy. Pride-and-Joy Hoskins. But if pride comes before a fall, does that mean the joy will come after?

I honestly don't know.

Coping is okay, I guess. I'm tough enough to take it.