I summon all my height - about five foot five - as I glare at Secundus. The little weasel has been braiding my cables again. It’ll take me hours to figure out whether they plug into my guitar or my laptop.

“Secundus.” I cross my arms over my chest, hoping I look authoritative and not like a bratty sixteen year old, because I am definitely one of those things. “I know you’ve come from the past and there were no such things as cables or chargers in Ancient Rome,” I pause to make sure he’s listening, “but I actually need to charge my phone, so…”

Secundus raises an eyebrow, not glancing up from his braiding. “So…?”

“So,” I somehow resist the urge to roll my eyes. “Gimmie my stuff back.”

But Secundus chews his lip, deep in thought. “You know you said I’m from Roman times?” he says, a wicked smile playing at the corner of his mouth. “Doesn’t that make me older than you? I don’t have to do what you say?”

“Physically, perhaps,” I mutter, “but in the emotional and mental department-“

“You’re a mental department,” Secundus counters, still not entirely up-to-date on modern insults.

“I’m older than you!” I snap, feeling my face turn red when Secundus snickers. “Just- ugh! Whatever!”

It’s not my most original retort, and I’m certainly not proud of myself when I turn and storm out - from my own room! - but it was probably for the best.

I’ll just wait until Secundus traps himself in those cables, just like he did last time, I smile smugly to myself. Then we’ll see who’s a mental department.

My brother did strange things with slugs. He'd spend hours and hours in the basement, oscillating between blasting Metallica and The Bee Gees, and then he'd emerge, a look of self-importance crowing his slanted grin.

"What did today's work bring, Noah?" I'd ask, on a now weekly basis.

Today, Noah responded with a wink and an outstretched hand. I leaned towards his wiggling fingers, an apprehensive lump in my throat.

"A...pixie cut?" I asked.

"With bangs," said Noah. "And I even-"

I shoved him harder than I'd meant to. Winter coats padded his fall as he stumbled into the front closet. I shut the door.

"Gen?" Mom entered the room carrying an oversized vase brimming with white and yellow flowers. "You think there's space for this on the table?"

"Oh, for sure!" Between jolting heartbeats I cleared Highlights magazines and used juice boxes. "Here good?"

"Yup!" Mom was careful to bend her knees as she placed the vase. She smiled, nodded and let out a warm sigh. "All good? Having a good Saturday?"

"Yeah! Just coloring."

"Nice."

"Yup."

She knit her eyebrows and tilted her head. I smiled harder. She shrugged, pat me on the head and left the room.

I counted her footsteps. "...7, 8, 9..." I opened the closet. Fuming, I said, "You have GOT to be more careful!"

"I've BEEN careful," whined Noah.

"I can't keep covering for your strange obsession," I said. "Mom found bits of red hair in the back of the car yesterday. I panicked! I told her they were from one of my dolls!"

"They WERE from one of your dolls," said Noah. "I've gotta get my material from somewhere."

*Jaw drop. "My Royal Shimmer Merida Doll?!"

"The one and only!" Noah raised a pair of kiddie scissors. *Snip. Snip. "Besides, it went to a good cause. The wig's reversible."

I quelled the urge to rip the scissors from his hands and snap them in half.

"And while I'm out here admitting things," said Noah. "I used your Dreamtopia Unicorn's mane to make a rainbow mullet. What do you call a slug mullet, anyways? A slullet? Mullug?"

I took a deep breath. "MOM!"

"No!" Noah gripped my shoulders and shook. "You can't tell Mom about this, not yet! She won't understand!"

"MOM! MOM! MOM!"

"Please! Sister! Sister dear! Don't you love me? Think of what this would do to me! Think of all the slug wigs I'd miss out on creating!"

"MOOOOOOM!"

"No! Listen! I'll take the blame for that thing we both know you did! You know, that mysterious tear in Mom's favorite dress?" Noah's head was tilted downward, revealing flecks of menace in his eyes. "Mom still doesn't know how it got there..."

"You wouldn't dare rat on me."

"Now you're listening! Okay how's this - I... I'll tell her that I played, um, tug of war, yes, tug of war with... Fido! Our dog, Fido! And Fido's teeth ripped through mom's New Year's Eve dress."

"We don't have a dog."

"Everything alright, Honey?" with her cellphone balanced between her shoulder and her ear, Mom's calm smile blanketed her children. "Something wrong between you two?"

Eyes blazing bright, I stared at Noah. Would he really take my punishment if it meant continuing on with his strange slug wig obsession? Didn't he know the sentencing would be steep? Could he come up with a lie better than a non-existent dog?

"Noah has...something to tell you...Mom," I said, still watching my little brother. If he left my gaze, his offer might leave as well.

Mom blinked. "Noah?"

Noah returned my gaze with a single nod. "Mom," he said, "Gen's a vandal."

Ronnie pressed her back to the door, closing out the chaos that lay beyond, and slid to the bathroom floor. A fresh chorus of screaming wails erupted down the hall and Ronnie touched her head to her knees. It was Rick’s turn to handle... whatever it was that was going on out there. She just needed like one minute to herself.

What had they been thinking? They weren’t ready to be parents! Ronnie still had a hard time accepting that she was an adult and she was only three months shy of thirty. How did her mother do this at twenty-four?

They should have given it more thought. Talked about it more. But at the time, Ronnie hadn’t seen it as something that needed thought. She just accepted it as what they needed to do.

Rick hadn’t spoken to his sister in nearly a decade, but it didn’t come as much surprise to learn she had been deemed unfit to care for her daughter.

By the time Rick got off the phone with the social worker, Ronnie was already working through the anxiety of becoming an unexpected parent. There didn’t need to be a discussion. Sienna needed to be with family, not sent of to foster care, not when Rick and Ronnie could step up.

They were going to be parents...

That’s not to say they took this lightly. Ronnie knew how hard it was to raise a child. She had gratefully sat on the sidelines and watched her sister raise theirs, happy to have the freedom to sleep in and not worry about getting peed on. Now, she sat with spit-up stains on her leggings and.... what is that? Is that a soggy cheerio in her hair?

Another wail sounded and Ronnie joined in with a tired whimper.

“Ron! I need another pair of hands here.”

Sighing, she used the vanity to help herself up; her one minute was up.

As she walked down the hall, she asked what she asked herself at least 1,000 times a day: Had they made a terrible mistake? Would Sienna have been better off with another family? A family who knew what the hell they were doing?

When she stepped into the living room, she found Rick holding their niece, doing that desperate little bounce that all parents do as they try to soothe a crying baby. His eyes were round and pleading. But instead of the wave of anxiety that usually washed over her when she felt overwhelmed, Ronnie smiled. She had no idea how to be a parent, but who really does? As long as you keep trying, you’ll figure it out along the way.

She crossed the living room and took Sienna from Rick’s arms so he could run and make a bottle.

Red cheeks, wet eyes, and a nose dripping with snot, Sienna settled slightly. Her wailing stopped as she stared up at Ronnie’s sparkling earrings. She sniffed and hiccuped and Ronnie chuckled.

Lowering her head to Sienna’s, Ronnie touched her nose with her own. “You’re going to drive me crazy, little one,” she said quietly.

A large smile broke across the baby’s face and she laughed in that cute, Gerber baby way, that has the power to melt hearts in an instant.

“Oh? Well, I’m glad you find that amusing.”

This was going to be hard. Really, freaking hard. But they would get through it, and all Ronnie could do was hope that Sienna would be better for it.

A girl’s living with parents in an isolated island.she grew up in a luxurious as a high level living standards. Even she demanded something she finds it.

She had a beautiful childhood but when she grew up and felt in love with a guy her parents aren’t approved to let her marry or see her life

She finds out she is different treated than her friends. Her friends know that they have their own life they can do whatever they want.they have the freedom

The girl found that their parents didn’t tell her that you are adult you could feel in love with someone it’s normal to have feelings to a man

They’re always saying to her that you are priceless and they feel jealous to anyone came close to her.she thought that because they are loving her so much.But she noticed that it is repeating even the people came close are good to. When she is talking with her friends and finds herself ubnormal she had never known until she interacted with the society as she was isolated but unfortunately her parents curb her from talking to them

A berserk girl smashing windows wanted to escape from this place she had sophisticated couldn’t leave in that prison.she couldn’t trust her parents.she dealt with the worker of home to make her escape but she returned scared that they could inform on her.

She experienced a sense of fatalism that kept her fear at bay.she could live like that with parents stay all day all night count her movement

They want to know even she is eating what or talking or going or drinking.one day she went to the centre and bought a dress when she had back to home they were standing on the steep door listening to her steps ascended on the ladder.they asked her to open the sacks and see what she bought

Is that too much care i don’t think so is they are unconventional parents!

Home was always so messy.

No matter how many times I tried to clean, the halls remained dumped with empty bottles and burn marks stained the sofa from cigarettes. Alcohol and smoke always muffling the air with a somewhat bearable stench.

Always messy. Always smelly.

Yet today, I couldn't hold back from holding my breath as I entered our squeaky door. I couldn't refrain my eyes from widening in shock at the sight.

"Mum?"

I slowly step through the doorway, careful in my steps as I make way around the shards of glass swept around my feet. Mum has never had an episode this bad.

"Hi mum, I'm home from school, let's watch the cooking show now."

I turn the corner to peak into the living room, more empty bottles meeting my eyes along side the TV lost in static. The curtains have been pulled down and blankets are strewn over the room in messy throws. I quietly rush to the kitchen cabinet where mum's medication is kept, but as soon as I reach the cabinet, I recognise the broken lock and the cabinet thrown open. The medications are missing. Shit.

Panic and fear seeps through my veins as all the possibilities at this current moment rushes through. There are a million things that might've happened, none of them are good. I need to find mum.

"Mum? Come on, we can make some cookies!"

I immediately head to her bedroom, her bed is in it's usual mess yet her sleeping form is not under the old covers.

"Mum?!"

I turn to the bathroom, the closed door mocking my fear and anticipation. I pull down on the handle and I almost burst into tears when I open the bathroom door. I have never ran faster to the home phone sat on the kitchen bench, never have dialled faster or spoke with such intensity. The dispatcher tries to calm me down, but my eyes are ringing and my body feels like a fever has washed over. I want to help my mum, I have always wanted to help her, I have always had so much hope that she was getting better, always thought she would be ok. But why was I wrong? Why did I come home only to find her lying in her own pool of vomit?

I should've known it never would've been easy having a mum so sick, having only you and her in a home neither can properly care for. But I had so much hope, so much faith. And now it's all gone and I feel empty.

"I'm so sorry I didn't come home earlier mum." I whisper to her as I hear the ambulance sirens down the road. "I'm so sorry."

You never really know what life is going to throw your way. There are some things, that seemingly out of nowhere, pop up all of the sudden and change the world as you had known it before. When Elizabeth had started dating Ben, he had seemed sweet enough. He was a bit persistent, but having not really been used to how male attention worked, she thought that was how all men were. She found his hounding and constant questioning of her interest a bit off-putting, but, managed to convince herself that was her “insecurities not wanting her to be happy”.

Over time, she allowed herself to grow dependent on his approval, but for all her worrying and catering- she still never seemed to be quite good enough. He was secretive, and quick to be defensive. But as far as she could tell, it truly was her inability to cope with having to exist that was the true problem. That was until the kids were born.

Premature. Two months. Day in and out were spent at NICU, pumping breast milk and kangaroo care. All this while Ben stayed home, looking at porn and chatting up old flames. At first, being up there, it bothered Elizabeth to see the doting men beside the woman and child they cared for. But she also realized in that time, looking into those big blue eyes staring into her-she didn’t need anyone else.

Not having the heart to move back to her family and tear her children from their father, she was unsure what to do. She tried working it out with Ben, but was always met with lies, excuses, and gaslighting. She wanted so badly to give her kids the chance at a “normal” life, a chance she hadn’t had herself... but in the deepest pit of herself, she knew, staying with Ben would continue to destroy her ever-eroding self esteem and sanity.

She separated from him and that’s when he really got out of control. He didn’t hit her, but he did make a very grand scene of cleaning his police issued handgun, while talking about wishing things worked out, and feeling unsure what to do. He frequently cornered her in compromising positions, and she was eventually forced to move out.

It was then that he began to do everything in his power to disrupt her social life and familial relationships. Having more money, the ability to lie, and using a job in law enforcement to his advantage, Ben eventually broke her down enough to get most of the physical custody. To everyone else in the world, she must have failed really bad. It isn’t a thing people understand. Usually, when children are not with the mother it tends to mean she really messed up. In Elizabeth’s case, she loves her children more than she can bare but some days all she can do is make sure she stays alive, in constant fear of Ben’s next infliction.

I am both parents for my brother At a young age we lost our mother And our fathers death we both did suffer So now I raise him, all we have is each other

“If you insist of doing something stupid at least tell me where you’re going.” Jace was sat in the swivel chair. His legs were up and crossed. He spun it around to face the twins as he spoke.

Wren and Talon halted their progress to the front door. Talon turned and addressed their big brother with the same smug ‘innocence’ Jace saw in the mirror.

“We’re just popping to the corner shop for some sweets, Jay,” he said. “You know what it’s like to study without snacks.”

Over Talon’s shoulder Jace saw Wren giving her twin a look that clearly said ‘are you an idiot? Or do you think he is?’

Jace looked from Wren to Talon and back again before standing and crossing the space between them in two short strides. He proceeded to flick them both on the forehead at the same time; he couldn’t risk one of them ducking away with pre-warning.

“Ow, what was that for you asshole?,” Talon said rubbing at the spot Jace had got him.

Jace raised his eyebrow. “That was for lying to me.” At Talon’s outraged expression Jace continued. “I’m not sure if you remember this Tee but I was the one who taught you how to lie and if I’m being honest,” here he paused and grinned at the blush spreading across his brothers checks, “you haven’t gotten much better at it.”

Wren started laughing. “He has a point Tal.” Talon turned to glare at her and Wren raised her hands as if in surrender. “You might be able to lie to others but not to him.”

Talon nodded; conceding the point. “So, what now?” he asked. He shuffled his feet as he waited for a response.

Jace smiled; this was a behaviour Talon had developed very early on in life and he apparently wasn’t going to be rid of it any time soon. “What now is, you either tell me where you’re going,” here the twins looked hopeful, “or I’m not letting you go.”

Both of their faces fell a little at this. Jace simply waited. Wren and Talon turned to one another and appeared to have a conversation without words. It was rather amusing to witness.

“Fine,” Talon said turning back round to face Jace. “We were planning on going down to the train station and tagging the spot were we lost mum.” When he finished he looked forlornly at his feet. Wren lent against his side and looked down as well.

Jace smiled sadly at them. “Make sure you don’t get caught ok?” The twins wore matching expressions of shock when their heads shot up. Jace chuckled. “And if things go tits up give me a call and I’ll be there to pick you up.”

“Are you-“ Talon started but couldn’t seem to get the words out.

“Are you sure?” Wren finished for him.

“I’m sure,” he said. “Now get.”

He couldn’t replace their mum. He was their brother and he did things a little differently.

Breathe in... Breathe out...

Breathe in... Breathe out...

That’s it. Just like they taught you. Calm down, don’t take it out on her.

“I’m sorry sweetheart, you know I didn’t mean it.” “I know Mum. It’s not your fault.” “But it is. Mine and my stupid autism’s.”

I always feel awful when ever I get overwhelmed. I always get so stressed and I end up shouting at my daughter. It’s because I’m autistic. Not many people know unless I tell them because I’m not like what everyone thinks an autistic person is like. I don’t have learning disabilities, instead I just get overwhelmed easily and I’m not good in social situations.

Today, I had a rough day at work. I am a mathematician at NASA, and there was this one thing that I just couldn’t work out. People were shouting at me to just put my mind to it and work it out; others were trying to suggest things to me, all at once. It was way to much information for my brain to process at once, I got so stressed that I simply walked out and said that when they had decided who was going to talk first, I’d gladly come back and finish that calculation.

The very moment I stepped in the door, Bella (my daughter) asked: “Muuuuuuum! Can I have some help with my maths homework?” That sent me overboard. I snapped at her and all the stress that I felt during the day camping pouring out in the form of frustration aimed at her when she didn’t deserve it.

“Mum! Stop blaming yourself for something you were born with and will have until the day you die! Stop blaming yourself for something you can’t control, and stop blaming yourself for other people’s actions that got you stressed! They know you’re autistic and need to be more understanding. It was the reason why they employed you in the first place because it makes you super amazing at maths.” “I know they know, but they don’t care. To them I am just another mathematician, except from the fact that my brain is wired differently.” I burst into tears and sobbed out all the emotions that had built up inside me. Bella sat down next to me. She cuddled into me and stroked my hair like she always does when I’m upset. It calms me down but makes me feel awful that she’s having to act like the parent.

A few minutes later, Bella looked at me and said, “I know! Why don’t you set up an education program at work about hidden disabilities so that people are more aware and can learn how to help and understand people like you?” I replied, “You know, that might just work!”

Sometimes when I stare into Anna’s eyes, I just wish.

Wish my parents actually cared about someone other than Toby.

I loved Toby once too-of course I did. He was my brother.

He was six when he died. I was nine. Anna was a newborn then.

Sometimes I can see my parents criticizing her. As if she’s supposed to replace Toby. Maybe because she’s a year older than Toby was when he died.

I can hear them saying ‘She’s thin. Toby was plump. He never stopped eating sweets’ or ‘she’s always drawing or reading. Not like Toby who never stopped running around’

Sometimes I want to scream, “Toby died seven years ago! Start caring about your other children! Anna and I!”

But I could survive without the love. Yes, at times it hurt deeper than I’d like to admit, but just seeing Anna made anger so deep simmer in my blood.

She was so vulnerable. She needed love so much. But it was never delivered.

————

I’m helping Anna with her homework. She doesn’t need much help—she’s so smart.

“Who is your role model?” I read aloud.

I remember having these. I used to always say Mom, but not recently. Sometimes I feel Anna, who’s nine years younger than me, is who I truly want to be.

“You,” she says, without much thought.

On the page, she writes MY ELDER SISTER, KATE.

“You need to use lowercase letters,”

“Uh, no!”

Then, Mom comes in.

—————

I won’t go into too many details but here’s what happened. There was a screaming fight. I joined Anna’s side. Dad joined Mom’s.

Hurtful words were said. The most hurtful; Mom saying ‘Why aren’t you Toby?! Everything would be better then!’

When that was over, Anna cried into me. Into my shoulder, she said so soft, I don’t think she knew I heard. “When will they love me?”

For a moment, I froze.

Then anger tore through me. Burning and raging.

—————

As soon as Anna went to sleep, I stormed out into my parents room.

I knocked. Polite, gentle, but firm.

Dad opened it. I crossed my arms across my chest.

Mom and Dad usually sleep at 11. It was now 7:30 so I knew I wasn’t interrupting anything.

As soon as I entered, I said. “Why do you hate Anna?”

I was trying my hardest to be calm and calculated. If it seemed like I was crying, this’d never work.

“Kate!” Mom gasped.

“We don’t hate…” Dad starts.

“Could’ve fooled me. Just because she’s not Toby? She’s your daughter too. We both are,”

“Kaitlynn Rose Marx!” Dad exclaims, voice rising.

“Anna is not Toby, sure. But she’s amazing. Better than you two, better than me,”

Mom starts crying.

“If we both died like Toby, I bet you wouldn’t even care!”

I left, hoping there would be some change.

—————

And there was, as that night, in the middle of the night when she thought I was still asleep, Mom kissed Anna on her forehead.