Breaking the Ice | ✍🏼

05. Playing Dolls

 - Annalise Lauren - 

"Playing Dolls" 

"Come here, sweetheart" I hated how my mother would pretend to be this perfect mother whenever we went out to places, in particular, the place my grandmother worked: the famous clothing store that almost everyone knew in my town. 

She always pretended like she knew me inside-out, when in reality, she didn't. "This is your favorite color, it'll look fantastic on you" she pulled out the worst dress I had ever seen, making me hold on a gag. 

Ok, maybe I was overexaggerating, but the color, was just not it at all. I hated every inch of it, with a burning passion. "Thanks" I grasped the dress in my cold hands, while another dress was flown in my face by my grandmother from the other side of the racks. 

"She didn't understand that that day, by giving me that dress, she was showing me the same dress that my older sister had been wearing before she had died. She didn't know that I was on the verge of a panic attack because of that dress" 

I was getting dressed up to walk my very first fancy runway show. I had practiced for this day, but I hated it. I hated everything about it; from the scratchy dresses to the people taking hundreds of photos of me. 

I hated the entire thing. But having the grandmother and mother that I have, everything on these days have to be perfect. Not a single piece of hair could be out of place. 

Some days I wished that I didn't have the grandmother that I have today; I wish that sometimes I didn't have a grandmother at all, because she has caused my mother to be the way she is today. 

I have seen the way that she stands in the kitchen, whispering every little white lie that she possibly can about me to my mother all because she hates me. She hates me all because of my other siblings. 

What she didn't realize was that she wasn't the only one that felt like she was being used as a second option; that I also was suffering with being reminded and used just as a second option, the backup plan. 

It felt like the only reason that someone would have 4 children; two sons and two daughters, would be to use the youngest two as the replacement for the eldest two. I mean, is it not suspicious that I had an older brother than an older sister, which then was repeated again, 2 to 4 years later. 

I was probably thinking too logically and not with my heart, as my mother would say. That I should follow what my heart wants and that is to be a model, but that's what her heart wants. 

I don't know what my heart wants. "Excuse me?" a familiar voice makes me halt my movements of following my mother around the store as I didn't care about the numerous amount of clothing pieces she was placing in my arms. 

I looked up, seeing the brother of the person I absolutely despised with a burning passion. "Archer, what brings you here?" my mother turned on her sweetest voice, making me cringe. I couldn't help but stare at how similar he looked to his younger brother. 

He hadn't changed in two years, or at least I didn't think so. He looked as if he was coming over to get my older sister for a date, just without the chocolates and flowers bundled up in his hands. 

Instead, he was holding a card. "I have a letter for Annalise" this caught me completely off guard. After the pieces of paper I had read last night, I was even more on edge about anything that was hand written and within a 2 mile radius of me. 

"Thanks....?" it came out more like a question, as hesitantly walked closer to him, grabbing the card. I slipped it into the back pocket of my jeans, watching as Archer followed my every move, with that same smile on his face that he had whenever he saw my sister. 

"Let Angus know your response" and with that, he turned on his heel, while my mother turned her piercing gaze back onto me. "Let me see the card" she put her hand out, but I was not giving in to her. If it was for me, it was for me only. 

"No" I snapped back, immediately regretting it when I saw the way my mother's cheeks burned. "You'll be grounded if you don't" another thing I hated about not only my mother but my father as well, was that they would get so angry so quickly over something so small and petty that it was stupid. 

Like right now was an example of it. "It was for me and me only" I then stormed off into the change rooms, wiping underneath my eyes to make sure the tears didn't make it any further than my cheeks. 

My mother could not be the person that got under my skin; she couldn't know that she was the one that made me cry myself to sleep. She didn't need to know that I hated her because she wasn't like every other little girl's mother. 

She wasn't like the rest of them and I hated her for that. 

I know she tried her hardest, but for me, she didn't. For the little girl that she hurt that day of the accident, she crushed her with me. She used whatever she had left of being a mother and crushed me to a million pieces with her. 

She had stopped parenting the moment that I was born, and she has made sure that that has been prominent with everything that she has ever done with me. "Annalise" she spoke, exhaustion running through her voice, but I didn't fall for her game. 

I was done wasting my time on someone who couldn't waste a single second more on me than she already had. So, I opened the card, immediately noticing Angus's handwriting. It was neater than most other boy's handwriting, which had always surprised me for some reason. 

I took note of the way that he had spelt my name right; no one seemed to be able to get it right but it never bothered me, so why did this matter so much right now? I had to read over the card a few times, making sure that I wasn't reading something that wasn't for me. 

I checked everything about the card, only getting enough time to stash it in the top of my boots before my mother whipped open the curtain to my dressing room. "Privacy" I muttered, wrapping my jumper closer to myself, feeling way too exposed with my mother standing this close to me, with so many mirrors around the two of us. 

"You do not get to walk down the runway tonight for what you did to me earlier. Don't think I forgot about the last time" she then closed the curtain with such anger that I was surprised the curtain didn't follow her. 

For some reason, I wasn't even sad about not doing what I had been destined to do all these years. No tears were brought to my eyes at the fact that I wasn't going to walk down the runway in a dress that I hated. 

I didn't have to be my mother's doll tonight, and that gave me so much relief and reassurance. The time that I was already spending with her was enough. "And you father knows" that brought a bit more disappointment, but in that moment I didn't care. 

I had other plans anyways, that preferred the look of at the moment. 

Going to a party with Angus Armani. 

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thoughts? xx