cricket warren {two} fin

I guess you could call my parents fanatics. Obsessive, visionaries, engrossed, addicted. I've heard people call them a number of things, not always with the kindest of words. It didn't help when I was born. Cricket, sole daughter and intended prodigy of the Warren family. They etched out their trophy on to a blueprint and then brought it in to existence. I wasn't perfect, of course. I was born right on time. At least, by the doctor's standards, I was. My parents wanted me early, they wanted me small. I didn't come out small. I'll never be small. I've always been healthy, always seeming a year older than I really am.

There were other things they didn't like. Her face was porcelain white, mine was spoiled by a smattering of freckles. Her eyes doe brown, mine big and blue and all the things my parents didn't want. Folks didn't understand it the day I opened my eyes and my mother didn't leap for joy. Most parents get excited over those things, don't they?

What they loved most of all, I think, was my hair. Thick and curly when I was born, chocolate brown and soft as silk. I remember when I was younger, my mother spending hours and hours brushing it, combing it, cutting bangs across the top, teasing and arranging until it was absolutely perfect. "You look just like her." she said, and twisted a strand through her long, frail fingers. She would smile and pat my head send me off to school. I'd come home and she'd be furious that I'd messed it up.

The major problem for my parents, of course, was that my body didn't move like her's. I couldn't twist myself in to a pretzel, I couldn't even bend down to touch my toes. They thought dancing might help. They sent me to private lessons (because the Warrens can afford that kind of thing), but the results were sub-par in their minds. Sure, I could cross my legs and touch my knees to the ground. Yes, I could do the splits. But could I arch my back and pull my foot over my head? Could I go from a bridge to a spiral with my head peering out between my legs? No, I wasn't good enough. I never cared. But for my parents, it was detrimental.

They did everything they could to make me like her. They talked about her at the dinner table, they sent me to training starting when I was ten, they asked that I specifically learn how to use a bow and a knife. They had her Games recorded and we'd watch them during any special occasion. I think I remember a time when I liked her, when I found her fascinating, but those days have almost completely faded to the far reaches of my mind.

I ruined my hair when I was eleven. It was my birthday. I'd asked them if I could bleach my hair, if perhaps it could be my birthday present. They'd laughed at me like it was some trivial joke. I was so upset, opening presents to discover hair pins and a baton instead of a a container that would change my hair from the dark brown it was at the time. But I knew we had bleach somewhere in the house, I knew because I'd seen my mother use it when she was cleaning, I'd seen the label on the container. I found it under the sink and used it after they went to bed.

My parents woke up to the sound of me crying, running into their room with a wet face and burned palms and brittle hair turned a gross yellow-brown. My father said I'd ruined my hands. My mother said I'd ruined my hair. They fixed it as best they could, but I spent the next few weeks with my hands wrapped in cream and bandages. My mother was too ashamed of what I'd done to my hair, so she cut it short, chopping off the bits I'd destroyed. I didn't mind I liked it shorter, I almost kept it like that.

I got my way in the end. If I wanted to bleach my hair, my mother said she'd get me the proper stuff, rather than walking hand in hand with a daughter who'd completely ruined her appearance. She hated it. She hated the blonde, the pale tips and the dark roots, but I was happy. I hated looking like her.

It's not that I didn't like her as a person. If I were to meet her, I'd be civil, I think, I'd shake her hand and ask if she'd had a nice day. But the aura my parents have built around her sickens me. They were so proud when she won, so excited and boastful, they didn't stop talking about it for days. I know because others have told me. They loved everything about her. Her demeanor, her style, her manner of speaking. My father used to give me speech lessons when I was younger, asking why in heaven's name I couldn't have a more eloquent tongue, why I couldn't sound like her. "Because I'm not her!" I said, slamming a fist against the table. I don't get angry much. But I was angry then, and I've gotten angry since.

Training became monotonous for me. Bored with the knives, bored with the trainers, bored with the world. It was all too easy. The nice thing was that it passed the time, that I had a place to go when I didn't want to be with my parents. Yes, I hated it there. But I hated being home any more. Most children love their parents. Perhaps I did at one point, but I don't think that's the case anymore.

I used to throw tantrums when we went to the market, yelling and screaming about whatever ridiculous matter I could think of. Anything went. I'd sob and stomp my feet, up until a bit a year ago. People would gawk at the twelve-year-old and the mother who couldn't control her. It pleased me, seeing them so embarrassed. They should be. They should be ashamed of how utterly obsessed they are with her. You'd think after thirteen years it would ware off, but it never did.

I stopped making a scene some time in the past year. they think it's because they've finally gotten through to me, I know it, but that's not the case. I do have some shred of dignity left in me, however much of it they've chipped away while turning me in to their perfect little doll. It was hard to make friends in school when all of them looked at me like I was an alien. At first I wanted to make friends. But then it got boring, someone asking for the umpteenth time, "Were you named after her?", or "Are you double-jointed?" No ma'am, I can't stand on my hands. No sir, I can't turn in to a pretzel. No, no, no.

I am not her.

I am not like her.

I will not become her.