"ɪ'ᴠᴇ ʙᴇᴇɴ ᴛʜᴇ ᴀʀᴄʜᴇʀ, ɪ'ᴠᴇ ʙᴇᴇɴ ᴛʜᴇ ᴘʀᴇʏ. ꜱᴄʀᴇᴀᴍɪɴɢ ᴡʜᴏ ᴄᴏᴜʟᴅ ᴇᴠᴇʀ ʟᴇᴀᴠᴇ ᴍᴇ ᴅᴀʀʟɪɴɢ, ʙᴜᴛ ᴡʜᴏ ᴄᴏᴜʟᴅ ꜱᴛᴀʏ?"

︵‿︵‿︵‿︵‿︵‿︵‿︵

⋆·˚ ༘ *

We are never the dictators of our own lives.

We aren't.

At least I am not.

Life, they say, is a rollercoaster. Well, mine feels more like a never-ending loop of chaos, and I'm strapped into the ride without a say in the matter. Ever wondered what it's like to have your life scripted by someone else? Welcome to my world.

The protagonist? Yours truly, Avery Turner. A prisoner in a routine so monotonous it makes Groundhog Day seem like a thrilling adventure. 

My life is so monotonous that I've spent innumerable days thinking about what would happen if one day I was in control of my own life. What if I could go out to parties or have friends and hang out with them?

I couldn't. My mother is the cause of that. My days have always been the same. I wake up, go to school, come back home, study, and go to bed. It's a never-ending cycle, and it has been for my entire life.

Why? Blame it on my dear mother, who's the maestro orchestrating this never-ending symphony of mundane existence. 

Tragic, I know.

"I wish I never had you! You're a shame to the family!" my mom screeched, one fine Monday afternoon when I had told my 'friend' that I was being pressured to follow my mother's orders. My supposed friend told my mom about it with some added exaggeration and dramatic appeal.

Ever felt the urge to pack your bags and run? I have. Countless times.

It's the trivial things. It's the big things. She'd accuse me of stealing her things and would threaten to send me to the psychiatric hospital if I didn't admit to the truth.

The truth was usually a lie. I remember crying myself to bed one evening, weighing my options. I knew in my heart that I didn't have an option. I had to admit that I was a pathological liar for my mom to let me live in the house. It was torture. A couple of days after I had admitted the 'truth', she forgot about it, until one day she found her porcelain idol in a storage box.

I'd expected her to come over and say sorry, but instead, all I got was, "Why did you lie to me?"

I try to forget these moments and act the way my mom wants me to. I need to be the excellent student, the obedient daughter, the teacher's pet, the academic researcher, the computer technician, and unfortunately, my sister's pest control.

Yes, my sister's deathly fear of insects means that I can't be afraid of them. I have to tackle them. I am my family's pest control. Although they have made it noticeably clear that I was a pest in the house. That's a story for another time.

I am not allowed to go outside the house without my mom and sister following me. No, my younger sister doesn't have these restrictions, because she goes to a private middle school.

In my mom's words, "You can get on anywhere, but my entire life is your sister," A reminder of my insignificance.

I often wondered what I meant to her. The bitter truth? Nothing.

I meant nothing to her, and to be fair, I've given up feeling sorry for her. Childhood memories painted a rosy picture—joyful conversations with my mother. Yet, the illusion shattered at eight when my father vanished, leaving a void never filled. My dad left us when I was eight. When I was younger, he used to take my sister and me out for the weekend, but we've heard nothing but total radio silence for the past two years. I've never actually missed him that much because his presence in my life was... never a reality.

You see, I lived with my grandparents for nine years because my mom was struggling to take care of me when I was one and she was pregnant with my younger sister. Therefore, they took a trip to Europe, left me with my grandparents in Canada, moved back to Connecticut, and decided that they needed to spend the early years of their lives with their younger daughter.

They had forgotten about me. 

As a child, I didn't think or believe that. For my young mind, I was more engrossed in the ten-minute conversations that I had with my mother every day. They made me so happy. I remember I used to run home from school every evening, waiting for her call.

I loved my family.

The battle ensued when I turned eight. My father had left my mom and my sister. My mom wasn't working then and bringing me back to Connecticut became my mom's dream. She put her body and soul into it. She begged emigration officers and begged my dad to sign the papers to bring me to Connecticut.

I naively believed that she cared that much about me, which is why she wanted me here. Maybe at a certain point in time, she did love me. That indefinitely faded every second that I spent with her. Or perhaps, she loved the kid Avery. The bubbly, sometimes moody little girl who didn't see the reality for what it was. I don't really blame her. I loved kid me too.

Now, my life is dedicated and dictated by my mother, for my mother. She tells me how to act every second, how to be, and what to be. I had known, as a thirteen-year-old, that she was controlling my life so intensely that I couldn't find my own path. 

My sister is the opposite of me. It could be frankly stated that Eliza hated me. She hated my presence so much that the mere sight of me led to her tantrums. When we were younger, she loved telling my mom false things about me, and my mom believed her words.

She reasoned that Eliza had never lied to her before.

Eliza is one of the main reasons I don't get along well with my mother. My mom told me that she had absolutely no trust in me at all. Any accusation would be fair because in her words, "You deserve to be accused, even if you haven't done anything. That's your punishment for every lie you ever told."

There's more to know about me. Of course, by now, you probably realized that my social scene is a non-existent one. Yes, my mom doesn't let me have friends because according to her, they're all, "Bad influences and drug addicts."

Way to go with the stereotyping, Mom.

I have spent my first two years of high school carefully curating the perfect image of Avery Turner. At home, Avery Turner is timid, careful, quiet, apologetic, sympathetic, and fearful. In high school, I became the dichotomy of home Avery Turner. In school, I was a defiant force, academically lethal and unapologetically indifferent.

Now, that doesn't mean that high school me is a mean girl, I'm nice to everyone I talk to. It's an acknowledged fact. However, people rarely want to talk to me on topics that don't include me doing their homework for money.

I'm not that desperate for money, because my mom doesn't let me buy anything anyway.

No financial independence either.

Freshman and sophomore years were the stepping stones of my life out of Connecticut so that I could move away to New Jersey and escape this godforsaken mess of a reality that I live in. I have spent days on end, preparing and working to get to a point where nothing could change the course of my plan to get into Princeton.

Until sophomore year AP Psych happened. I was doing excellently in the class, I knew everything I needed to know, and I studied for the class, as I would for everything that I put my mind to. However, when the stars are against you, there's nothing much you can do.

Well, to be fair, it really wasn't my fault.

The assignment that makes up 20% of our grade was apparently announced the day that I was at the launch of an animal shelter. The group chat for our Psychology team usually contained this information, because that is a basic courtesy. Well, it didn't happen that day. The only thing people posted was the homework.

This left me oblivious to the fact that we even had an assignment. As you can guess, I didn't realize that it existed until Ms. Johnson asked me for it.

I never looked more horrified in my life. I could hear the sniggers in the classroom and everyone staring at me, confused as to how I, the Avery Turner, missed an assignment that determined my GPA and final grade.

Ms. Johnson looked so disappointed in me, and she immediately scribbled down a zero for the assignment. It took a lot for my tears to not fall, as I could feel the 20 pairs of eyes burning into my back, giggling at my idiocy and the fact that I took the group chat for granted and didn't bother consulting anyone else.

This had never happened to me before.

I knew this couldn't happen to me, not now, when I was getting closer and closer to the end. So, I waited 30 agonizing minutes until Ms. Johnson dismissed us. My hands were trembling so much, and I didn't even realize it because I had spent way too long staring into space, deep in thought.

"Avery, how can I help you?" Ms. Johnson asked, sweetly. The audacity she had to ask me that question when she knew very well what was wrong. However, as the Avery Turner in school, I kept my cool. Avery Turner in school is respectful even to the biggest assholes. Avery Turner never loses her cool in school, even when there is an impending tragedy.

Hey, that rhymed. Sorry.

"Hi Ms. Johnson, I'm very sorry for not having my assignment with me. I wasn't here that day and nobody mentioned it to me, so I didn't realize-"

"Avery, you know better than that. You are a good student. I'll give you that. Your work ethic, however, definitely needs to be improved. You need to be more responsible than that," Ms. Johnson said interrupting me.

Obviously, I knew that it was a mistake. Did she think that I missed an assignment because I thought it would be a hilarious joke? No, I missed it because I hadn't realized that not putting up important updates on the group chat was a new development in this class.

"I understand Ms. Johnson. I will be more careful after this incident. Is there any way that I could submit the assignment tomorrow? I promise I'll get it to you," I pleaded.

"I'm sorry Avery. That wouldn't be fair for the others in the class," she said dismissively and gestured me the door. My eyes were prickling with tears, and I grabbed my bag off the floor.

She really didn't understand how badly I needed this.

That was the last day of sophomore year. Everyone was happy to leave for the summer. They were talking about the incredibly exciting plans that they made. Gemma Watson screamed for everyone who'd listen that she and Kyran Drake were going on a romantic excursion to the Bahamas with her family. However, I was waiting around the principal's office debating whether I should go and beg her to let me submit the assignment to keep my GPA up.

Sad times, indeed.

In the end, I decided to wait until the first day of the next academic year to ask. Ms. Walton wasn't particularly in a good mood that semester, because three of her hired secretaries either booked holidays or suddenly went on maternity leaves. Principal Walton was left with more work than usual, and granted, she was getting paid for it but, she turned into more of a Grinch.

Welcome to the sad reality of the public education system.

The cafeteria that day reminded everyone of one thing - how Gemma and Kyran, AKA Beauty and the Beast, were sleeping together throughout the summer holidays. Now, I'll be real, Kyran isn't a Beast per se, in terms of looks. He was considerably good looking and that's what gave him the arrogance and self-centered confidence that other guys lacked. His right arm is a kaleidoscope of tattoos, it seems like there is no way he could get more tattoos on the same arm, but somehow, he did.

Not that I particularly noticed or anything.

He was the greatest footballer this high school had ever seen, and as cliched as it is, Kyran is the mixture of popular sports star and an immoral guy who doesn't care about people's feelings.

Calling him that is an understatement. He was a boy of limited moral compass. His rules are the norm. He follows them and expects others to follow them. Otherwise, their lives become living hell. He isn't a bully either, at least not nowadays. If he talks to you, he expects you to act a certain way in front of him. A step above respect, he instills fear.

He can mess with your mind just as easily.

He reminds me of my mother, and it scares me. I avoid him because every time he opens his mouth and talks to someone, he has ulterior motives. He controls what they do and stupidly enough, they all listen to him too. Gemma isn't an exception. His relationship with her has its perks. Gemma's parents are rich, rich enough to own a multiplex plaza in Dubai. Gemma used to go to Eastwood Academy for Freshman year, and yes, it is as fancy as it sounds. But Gemma was reported for harassment and got expelled, leading to her unprecedented transfer to Oakland High.

My eyes filled with jealousy as everyone was planning their holiday escapades while I was contemplating my GPA's salvation. 

"Kyran and I are going to do a grand tour of the Middle East afterwards!"

Enough about Kyran and Gemma's dazzling lives.

Why am I writing such a long-winded story of my life, you wonder? Well, every person that I mentioned is instrumental in the fact that my life became more fucked up in my Junior Year.

They ruined my life, collectively and led me to a dangerous hole that I can't get out of.

They are all liars.

I hate them.

I really hate them.

⋆·˚ ༘ *

Hello dear readers, 

As I'm writing this, my mom is calling me to finish the chores and I seriously don't want to. I hate being stuck at home for the holidays because it means I have to do my chores. 😒

However, on a more important note, first chapter! I hope you all liked it. It's a bit heavy and introduces the main and supporting characters that you'll encounter throughout the story. Avery's life is not the greatest right now. Let's all hope that it gets better, it's all in my hands though. 😈😈

If you liked this chapter, please leave a vote. I'd really appreciate it.

Until next time,

Audrey 💕😘