Chapter 2: Hope and Hurt

Back home, my mother was annoyed that I embarrassed her at school and locked me on the porch to starve for a night. Luckily, after two times, the teacher stopped calling my mother.

The silence after the second time was almost a relief. I’d take hunger over humiliation any day. I learned to keep my head down, to never give anyone a reason to notice me. Hunger gnawed at my stomach, but I preferred it to being hit in front of the whole class.

As a child, I once asked my mother why Hailey could play with toys and watch TV and do nothing, while I had to do so much. Her answer was always—

She’d lean over, her face close to mine, her voice like ice: "Hailey is supposed to play, but you owe Hailey a life, so everything you have should be used to make it up to her!"

"It’s because you’re guilty that your dad doesn’t come to see you. He divorced me because he hates you!"

"Quinn Delaney, you are a child of sin, born to be hated. No one loves you."

The words were like a spell, repeated until they became the soundtrack of my childhood. I’d mouth them to myself at night, trying to make sense of why I was always on the outside.

Since I could remember, my dad only saw me once or twice a year, and every time it was at his and Aunt Melissa’s new home. When he played with my brother, he looked just like my mother with Hailey, but he rarely spoke to me. So I thought he really hated me, just like my mother said.

I sat on the rug, knees to my chest. Watching. My dad toss a football with my brother. Aunt Melissa would pour lemonade, her laughter ringing through the house. I’d wait for my dad to look at me, to say something just for me, but he never did.

It was too hard at home, so I actually preferred being at school. At school, I had my own textbooks, and my classmates weren’t as domineering and wild as Hailey. They were nice to me. I started to talk to classmates, and even though I didn’t know much when I started, I quickly became a top student. I loved how patient and kind the teachers were when they taught me.

In the classroom, everything was different. The teachers smiled when I raised my hand. My classmates asked to borrow pencils and saved me a seat at lunch. I soaked up their kindness like sunshine. Learning became my escape, the one place where I could be good at something, where I mattered.

Later, the teacher often praised me, and my classmates started to like me, calling me "the nerdy brainiac." At the end of the term, I scored 100 in math and 92 in English, ranking first in the class.

Hope. I almost didn’t recognize it. The day the scores were posted, my heart pounded with something like hope. My classmates crowded around, patting my back, grinning. "Way to go, Quinn!" someone said. I almost smiled, for real.

My classmates all looked at me enviously, saying that with such grades, my mom would surely reward me—just like their moms did. But I knew my mother wouldn’t. She hated me, deep down. She only liked Hailey. My mother had hugged Hailey in front of me more than once, sighing, "Hailey, why aren’t you my child? If you were, I wouldn’t have to suffer with this cursed kid."

I’d watch them from the doorway, my mother stroking Hailey’s hair, her voice soft and wistful. I’d turn away, pretending I didn’t care, the words echoing in my ears long after the door closed.

The teacher asked us to take the report card home for a parent to sign. I routinely handed it to my mother, but before she could take it, Hailey, who was crying nearby, snatched it, tore it to pieces, and pulled my hair.

I didn’t even have time to react. Rip. My scalp stung. Hailey’s face was twisted with jealousy. My mother’s eyes narrowed, and I knew what was coming before she even moved.

"Quinn Delaney, what do you mean? You know I didn’t do well and got scolded by my mom, and yet you bring your first-place report card to show my aunt? Who are you trying to humiliate?"

Her words were spit out like venom. I stood frozen, still clutching the shreds of paper, not understanding what I’d done wrong. I just wanted someone to be proud of me.

After she finished, my mother’s face darkened and she slapped my head.

The slap rang out, loud and final. I bit my lip, trying not to cry. The room spun, my ears ringing. Hailey smirked, satisfied, and I felt smaller than ever.

"Quinn Delaney, can’t you leave Hailey alone for once? You owe her a life, and instead of making it up, you make her cry every day! If I had known you were so vicious, I should have drowned you at birth!"

Her voice was a knife, slicing through any hope I had. I wanted to disappear, to shrink down until I was invisible. I stared at the floor, willing myself not to cry.

My head buzzed as they hit me, and I didn’t understand what I’d done wrong. I had just come back from outside; I had no idea what they’d just talked about, and even less why, if Hailey did badly, I couldn’t do well.

I clutched at the shreds of my report card, my hands shaking. The room felt too small, the air too thick. I wanted to scream, to ask why nothing I did was ever enough.

Watching my good report card turn to shreds, I was angry and wronged, but there was nothing I could do, because my mother said that no one else in the world would want me.

I curled up in the stairwell, knees to my chest, silent tears running down my cheeks. No one came. No one ever did. The world felt impossibly big and cold. I wished I could run away, but I had nowhere to go.

Like an abandoned puppy, I hid in the stairwell licking my wounds. Neighbor Mrs. Patterson saw me and gently asked what was wrong. Suddenly being cared for, I couldn’t hold back and told Mrs. Patterson everything, crying. She comforted me and gave me food, then went to my house to speak for me, taped my report card back together, and said she’d signed it for my mother.

Warm. Soft-spoken. She always smelled like cinnamon rolls. Mrs. Patterson was the kind of neighbor everyone wished they had—warm, soft-spoken, always smelling faintly of cinnamon rolls. She wrapped me in a blanket, listened to my story without interrupting, and pressed a peanut butter sandwich into my hands. For a moment, I felt seen, like maybe I wasn’t invisible after all.

My mother signed it, but kept a dark face the whole time. After Mrs. Patterson left, she slapped my head again, asking why I told others about our family matters. I said nothing. Maybe my mother was afraid I’d run out and embarrass her again, so she didn’t pursue it further.

She was scared now. Her eyes darted to the door, as if expecting Mrs. Patterson to come back. She muttered under her breath, her anger simmering just below the surface. I kept my head down, not daring to look up.

After that, whenever Hailey saw me doing homework at home, she’d complain to my mother that I was targeting her and not playing with her, and I’d be called over so Hailey and her friends could "play" by bullying me.

They’d drag me into their games, pushing and shoving, laughing when I tripped. They laughed. I didn’t. My mother would stand in the doorway, arms crossed, watching like it was a show. I learned to keep my head down, to let them have their fun so they’d leave me alone sooner.

I was dumb as a child, but I could tell what Hailey was doing—she didn’t want me to study, didn’t want me to do better than her, didn’t want me to be happy.

Her jealousy was like a shadow, always lurking. I started to hide my books, to pretend I didn’t care about school. Anything to keep the peace, to avoid another round of punishment.

So later, I always finished my homework at school. Did badly on purpose. I also helped my deskmate, Riley Thomas, with her homework, letting her help "bully" me in front of Hailey. Seeing my grades at the bottom and me being bullied, Hailey was delighted and didn’t bully me as hard anymore.

Riley caught on quickly, playing along in front of Hailey, then slipping me candy or a note of encouragement when no one was looking. It became our secret, a little rebellion against the cruelty at home.

Other classmates saw Riley "bullying" me and joined in, often giving me snacks as compensation and keeping my secret from Hailey. I really liked my classmates at school.

We looked out for each other. That’s how you survived. In the classroom, I found a tribe—a group of kids who looked out for each other, who understood that sometimes you had to play the game to survive. They’d wink at me across the lunch table, slipping me a cookie or a juice box when the teachers weren’t watching.

But I didn’t understand the importance of the middle school entrance exam at the time, and I did badly, so I ended up at the same school as Hailey for junior high, and "performed" for her with new classmates for two years. It was two years because Hailey did so badly she was held back a grade.

She looked annoyed. And a little triumphant. I remember the look on Hailey’s face when she realized we’d be in the same school again—a mix of triumph and annoyance. I kept my head down, played the part, and waited for my chance to escape.

But I hated going to the same school as Hailey, hated seeing her. Every time I saw her, I’d think of my mother saying I owed her a life. How heavy is a life debt? So heavy that you don’t even dare to breathe freely.

Some days, it felt like I was suffocating, like there was a weight on my chest I couldn’t shake. I could barely breathe. I counted down the days until high school, each one a small victory.

To avoid Hailey in high school, I took the entrance exam seriously, filled in every answer, and didn’t hide my ability. I wanted to get into a magnet high school that Hailey couldn’t get into.