(Skylar on the top)

Chapter |2|

You know what's the hardest question?

No, it's not the problem of choice between what to wear to what to eat.

It's not even deciding what to do with your life.

It's asking 'what's wrong?' When you know that there's nothing right.

Exhausted, I shut the door behind me as I entered the house where I lived, before dumping my gym in the storeroom and dragging my feet up to the stairs.

All I wanted was to fall on my bed and go into a deep slumber. The race had me physically exhausted and the problems in my life, mentally. But obviously, whenever I think I'm free to do what I want to do, life comes and throws an interruption, as if mocking me by saying ,'Okay now?'

And I really wanted to groan at this interruption.

"Back from stuffing your stomach? I sincerely hope you didn't empty their stock of eatables," My darling step-mother sneered while having an ugly grin plastered on her face.

I didn't want to turn around. I didn't want to face her. But I didn't have much choice. I knew she'd follow me to my room and pester me until I replied. She loved making my life miserable. It was as if every mean word she said to me gave her some sort of deep pleasure without which she couldn't sleep.

"What? Did you eat up all your replies too?" She snarled. She had her white blonde hair in a tight bun. She wore a tight-fit red top along with a skin tight, long black skirt.

You see, in order to go for my races, I had to have some excuse. So I made up some gibberish about going to a fast food restaurant every day while I actually worked to keep myself in shape.

But as long as I had a bulging belly and huge thighs, Linda was satisfied.

In Fact, the owner of the restaurant, who was an old lady in her fifties, had pity on me after I'd told her my sob story. That is why if either one of the satanic beings tries to confirm my presence in the restaurant, dear old Martha does that for me.

The question still remained though. Why did I have to dress up in a fat suit to cover up my actual body?

In quite many instances where I felt the rebel in me rise, I had asked myself the very same question. In fact when my inner rebel had taken control, I did a couple of things to defy Linda, only for them to come and bite me in my rear.

One of the reasons I though why she wanted me to be fat was because she wanted everyone to see that Alicia was better than me. But people like Linda fail to understand that just by having an extra pound of fat or chub doesn't make the other better. In fact I wouldn't have minded staying a little chubby until the mother daughter pair decided to erase my mother's memories.

So in order to stop her from succeeding, I kept the essence of mom alive through something that proved as a constant reminder of the moments we had spent together before everything went downhill.

"No, Linda. They still have their food supply left," I replied tiredly. My eyes were almost drooping and I just wanted my bed.

"Well, whatever. Just get out of my sight, you fat, good-for-nothing bitch!," she sneered and sashayed off.

I didn't even have the energy to roll my eyes at her.

I'd gotten used to this. All her snarky remarks, taunts and insults. Three years gives a person enough strength to get immune to these kind of things.

With all the energy I was left with, I dragged myself upstairs to my room and fell on my bed.

****

"Eeeeeep. Mommy! Look what I found in the mailbox!," a highly pitched voice pierced through my ear drums, jolting me awake.

I groggily rubbed my eyes and pushed the duvet aside. I groaned when I looked at the time.

Seven bloody a.m.

Rubbing my eyes again, I lifted my body off the bed. It was no use trying to go back to sleep anyways. I could still hear the loud shrieking outside, which now doubled. I let out a groan.

Ignoring the shrieking that was turning into high pitched giggling, I stalked to my bathroom.

Turning towards the mirror, I studied myself. Thick black, oiled hair rested on top of my head but a few caramel-brown strands escaped through behind. I disliked this wig a lot. One of the many reasons was the oily look it gave. It was as if someone had emptied a entire bottle of oil on the wig. Another reason was that this wig constantly reminded me of the start of the dark days.

In my teenage rebel days, I had convinced mom to let me dye my hair black. It was shortly after when she left me and Linda came into my life. That is one of the reasons that I chose a black wig. Because Linda has always seen me with black hair since I re-dyed them when she used to pretend to be a 'good mother' and compliment me because of how the black colour apparently suited me.

I used to want to win her approval so badly that I always dyed them discreetly without letting her know that my original hair colour wasn't actually black. I guess that did work in my advantage since she doesn't know what my hair colour is actually like.

I removed my wig and let my caramel-brown hair loose. My blue eyes looked tired. The glint of happiness had completely vanished.

I tried to ignore the slight ache upon watching myself masking my identity for someone who I didn't even give a damn about.

I brushed my teeth and hopped into the shower. Rinsing myself thoroughly, I grabbed a towel and and dressed myself. After setting my wig, I walked out of he room. 

The shrieking had subsided but I could feel the excitement in the air.

I walked down to the breakfast table where dad was having his favourite, peanut butter pancakes with chocolate sauce. My dad was a man in his late forties with slightly greying hair and brown eyes. He had a few wrinkles adorning his ageing face but that didn't make him look older. 

"Hey Dad," I greeted as I sat down beside him.

"Hey kiddo. What-,"

"Daddy, aren't you excited about the ball? I mean we got invited. Isn't that great?" Alicia cut him off like she always did, whenever dad tried to talk to me.

She loved taking his attention away from me.

"Of course honey. I know my daughters are definitely going to stand out over there," he said smiling at me.

I forced a small smile on my face to return him.

"Dad, I hope you mean one of your daughters. I mean-no offence Penny, but no one would choose a fat-uh I mean overly chubby girl as their representative," she said with a sickly sweet smile.

I didn't look at dad to defend me. I didn't want to be disappointed by his silence again. So I kept eating my PB&J sandwich in peace, ignoring the hurt. He hadn't defended me the past two years now so why would he bother now?

Dad probably felt she was joking.

I felt ashamed. Not because of dad or Alicia. But because Dad's unresponsiveness still managed to hurt me like anything.

After finishing my sandwich, I slipped off the stool and grabbed my bag for school.
****

The moment I reached school, the excitement in the atmosphere was palpable. Every girl was talking about the ball.

The Annual Summer Ball.

Or as we, students called it, The Cinderella Ball.

The Ball was held every year for all the seventeen-year to eighteen-year olds in town and across.

This was quite a big event as five towns in the state participated. Every year families were short listed and were sent invites. Not all could participate.

The basis of short listing was unknown. All the short listed families then gathered in one town where the introductory gathering was held.

In this gathering, everyone was supposed to mingle and present their best.

After the gathering, a ceremony of two hours was held, where the mothers of the boys chose a girl to represent their family and partner up with the boy.

What happened after that, though I hate to admit it, was actually very fun. At least from what I'd heard.

The partners were made participate in competitions. And those weren't any kind of beauty or best looks competitions. They were of the absolute ridiculous kind. From brains to beauty, everything was considered of the pair as a whole.

After three weeks of the competition, the Annual Ball was held, where a last test was conducted and then, the winner was declared.

It was really fun from what the seniors told us.

Apparently, the invitations had been sent to the short-listed families in which mine was one too. Hence the morning shrieks.

As I walked down the hallway, I could feel the anxiousness and the anticipation in the air.

Since it was the last day at school before our summer break, the chit chatting of the friends was three times worse than any normal day.

Being made a social pariah, I didn't have any friends.

It was okay, though. I had already stopped feeling bad about these kind of things, since a long time.

I opened my blue locker to take out my books. Once I was sure I had all of them, I turned around, only to come face-to-face with none other than Alicia and her cronies.

I held in the urge to groan as I faced her.

"Listen. Just because our family got invited, doesn't mean that you have even a single chance to participate," she said, pointing a perfectly manicured finger at me.

"Really, Alicia? Are you so insecure that you think you're gonna loose to me?" I challenged the red-headed step-sister of mine.

"Anyway no one in their right mind would choose a hobo like her," Cindy spoke, before Alicia could unleash her wrath and pulled her away from me.

I didn't say anything as they stalked off. I just sighed and waited until the halls emptied after the warning bell. I had too many similar incidents so I barely bothered caring now.

After the halls cleared off, I started making my way towards the place I had began to love.

The tracks.

As soon as I reached the ground, the slightly dusty smell, mixed with the sweet smell of wet grass made a smile creep up on my face.

I observed the white marked lines of the track and imagined my shoe clad feet thudding on the brown, musty tracks. The adrenalin rush, the feeling of-

"Excuse me Miss, you are not allowed to be on ground at this time," a voice filled with authority spoke from behind me, startling me.

I turned around with a small smile. "Not even for the captain of your team, coach?"

A slow grin graced his face. "According to rules, captains can only be here at odd times when called in by the coach."

"Great. Now let's just pretend that you had to call me for a very important matter, which reminds me, can I get my medal?" I asked, referring to the yesterday's competition.

"And fast, I really need to tighten my belly or it's going to come off," I said lifting it up to my stomach. It was already moving too much, which was not good.

He simple shook his head in amusement and led me to his office. "I still don't understand why you wear these belts," he said, looking at me with disbelief and amusement in his eyes.

Coach Burns was in his late thirties. With brown hair, sharp features and twinkling green eyes, he was already cherished among the female teachers of the school. But he was mainly known for being strict. Not with me, though, because for one he knew how devil-hearted my family was and I was one of his best students. His words, not mine.

"You know the reason. If Linda is not satisfied with how miserably I'm living she'll repeat the things she did last time. Remember when she didn't pay my school fees and told Dad that I'd been expelled?"

"But didn't you explain it to him?"

"I did but when she pretends to be the victim, dad doesn't even bother doubting her because he trusts her more than me," I replied, not thinking too deeply about the fact that he never even cross checked whenever she lied. Even when his own daughter is accused.

"Here," he said holding my medal out for me as we reached his office.

The metal gleamed as the sun rays glowed on it. The smile that spread on my face was hard to remove as I took the gold medal from him and hung it around my neck.

The moment the medal fell on my chest, a great sense of relief and pride filled me.

"Looks good on you," coach said smiling.

"Thanks Coach. Thanks for everything."

"Don't worry kid. That's the least I can do for my best runner," he spoke.

I smiled at him. He was like family outside family. In fact, he was the one to push me into being a runner. And for that, I'll be forever grateful to him.

****
Hey guys. Hope you enjoyed it :)

I know it might seem a bit boring right now, but I promise it will get interesting as we proceed.

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Until next time <3