"Never,” I hissed, “will you know me. Never will you ever understand me. Because you aren’t who I thought you were.”

“Ana, please don’t leave…” my mothers voice trailed off.

“Don’t. Call. Me. Ana!” Muscles clenching at her calling me the nickname I absolutely detested, I pinched the boys’ ears even tighter to their heads. They would hate to hear me and Mom fighting. Again. “You abandoned us. Left us - me - to fend for the three of us. We’re not animals, okay? I’m tired of being treated this way. I’m not a little girl anymore.” My voice broke at ‘little girl’ but despite that and the tears threatening to run down my cheeks, I stayed strong.

Mothers face fell at my hurtful words. “Baby, I didn’t want to leave you guys. Did you know that? Please-“

“But you did! You did!” Now I couldn’t help it. Tears were recklessly streaming down my face, and I hugged my brothers closer to me. They were whimpering. “Shh, it’s okay,” I whispered to them, stroking their heads, still giving our mother a fierce death stare.

“Ana, I am your mother,” she said with a sudden sense of authority. “And I am telling you that you must stay here. Brady and Xander too.”

I huffed, and to my dismay it came out a little bit sniffly. “Well, I’m almost seventeen, giving me the right to step out of this house whenever I want to, and if I leave, the boys are coming too.”

“I can live without you,” Mother started lowly, her voice breaking too, “but not without them.” That I could understand. I wasn’t the most pleasant to be around at times, but the boys were so caring and generous and loved both me and our mother no matter what.

“And who do you think the boys are going to wanna go with, huh?” I snarled. “Who took them in when you sent them to their rooms in tears? I did. Who tucked them in and read them bedtime stories when you were moping about Papa? I did. So I can see who they’re going to pick.” At that last word, both the boys burst into tears and buried their heads into my sides.

Mother slowly sat down on a tuft of raggedy carpet and became a pit of endless sad sobs. She mumbled many inaudible words burying her face in her hands, and I took that as my chance. I hauled the boys over my shoulders (I had been doing this to them since they were just two years old) and scuffled down the stairs, trying to be fairly quiet, although I don’t think I was going about the right way.

“No!” Mother sobbed, trampling after me, her high heels clicking loudly as she carefully made her way down the stairs after me and the boys. Her cheeks were tear stained and red and she looked as if she was actually upset that I was leaving. “Xander! Brady! Don’t leave Mama!” Never mind. Xander and Brady were both sucking on their thumbs, waving goodbye to her over my shoulder. I knew they would stick with me. But where were we going to go? Whenever I had thought about running away, I hadn’t come up with many ideas about where we would go.

The forest? Nah. Too risky. Gramma’s house? Uh-uh. She’s way too close to Mother. What about that old abandoned shed on the outskirts of Metropolis? Yes. It was rotting and covered in vines and moss. No one was ever going to look for us there.

With a last spurt of energy, I pushed through the front door and raced through the trees, still able to hear Mother sobbing on the path, cursing. I kind of felt bad for her, losing Papa and then losing her three kids as well. No wonder she was so upset all the time. She had to raise us all on her own.

But no. She hadn’t shown compassion for us since Papa was alive, and I wasn’t about to give her any either. She was lucky the boys had shown her so much love. When she started to block us out, out a wall between us, I did it to her. I wasn’t about to pity her. She should’ve taken all the responsibility, shown us pity. But instead, she was ignoring us, leaving us to fend for themselves.

And so we were. So we were. I would never look at my mother’s face again.