Cinderella One: ...HER

My father sat with me on the couch, one arm draped comfortingly around my shoulders, while his other arm was by his side holding the remote control. We were watching The Food Network and learning how to make some really fancy looking entrees. Suddenly, out of nowhere, the crack under the front door started letting water into the house. I panicked and Father held me tighter. The water started coming in faster and faster, and Father was up on his feet trying to run away from it as quickly as he could, carrying me over his shoulder. Pretty soon, I could feel the current rising and gaining in strength, and Father had to change from running to swimming because he could no longer feel the solid ground beneath his feet. There was a dry point atop a bookcase and Father put me up on the highest shelf, then tried to climb up to join me so we could use the bookcase as a life raft. He had almost gotten to the top when a piece of debris from our house that had gotten sucked into the current smacked him on the head and he fell. I tried to grab his hand, but I couldn't and he sank to the depths, forever being confined to his watery grave.

“NOOO!”

I awoke with a start, wishing that I would one day stop having this dream, the same dream that had been haunting me ever since my father drowned when I was five. In every version of the dream, I am the age I was at the time I had it, and I always try to save my father, but it always ends up with him disappearing forever. I was sixteen now and I didn't have a loving family anymore. With my father’s death came the death of everything else I knew. I still think that my stepmother was the one, the person who had killed him, but she was too smart and she left no evidence behind to lead anyone to suspect her. I had barely gotten dressed for the day when a harsh pounding on my door led me to stop thinking of things long past, and the knocking didn't stop until I opened the large wooden plank that separated me from … her.

“CINDERELLA! What have I told you about SCREAMING IN YOUR SLEEP?! How am I supposed to get ANY beauty sleep with you howling away like a dog?!”

I growled under my breath because I figured my stepmother couldn't even hear me anyway. She was screaming so loud that she probably woke up half the neighborhood. My name was Cynthia, but my stepmother preferred to call me Cinderella, which was a horrible nickname that my fat stepsister, Jacqueline, called me one day as I was cleaning up after one of their lavish dinner parties. I had soot on my face and clothes from scrubbing the sides of the brick walls enclosing the fireplace, and Jacqueline had told me to stop rolling around in the cinders and be a proper girl.

My stepmother pushed past me, entering my room, glaring at me with her cold green eyes, hands on her hips, standing in front of me like a rock in her stupid bright orange pajamas and ugly rollers in her hair, refusing to let me pass.  Every time I tried to go towards my bed to make it, she would move in front of me on purpose. It’s like when you and a person run into each other, and then neither one of you knows what to do to get around the other, so you end up doing an irritating dance of sorts until you finally break away and move on.

I stood there with my arms across my chest, glaring back at my stepmother and scowling at her, not caring that I was openly showing her disrespect. I didn't understand why she felt the need to waste my time like this so often. It seemed so dumb because if she wanted me to cook her breakfast, it was going to take longer now that she wasn't letting me do my chores.

“Well. Aren't you going to make your bed? Or answer my question?”

“I had one of my bad dreams again.”

“Oh come now. Did you really think I gave a shit about what you were howling about? I just wanted you to stop being so noisy. Now go make your bed.”

I went to do as she said and she stepped in front of me again. I rolled my eyes and defied her, which was a big mistake.

“What was that? Did you just give me sass with those ugly blue eyes of yours?”

I regretted my actions as soon as I felt the sting of my stepmother’s hand slapping me across the face, first on my right cheek, and then again as I was backhanded across my left cheek.

“Ugh. Your hair looks like dry straw. You are so ugly. Now make your bed, both of my daughters' beds, and then report to me in the dining room. NO arguments. Do you hear me, Cinderella?! This time I want a proper fucking answer.”

I curtsied towards my stepmother, and bowed my head as low as I could go.

“Yes, madame.”

“Perfect. That’s my ugly little girl.”

I stood back up, and my stepmother pinched my cheek roughly as she uttered her condescending words and spun around on her heel, closing the door behind her and leaving me alone in my room once again.