I had a poor appetite and left half my bowl of rice. My dad, Arthur, gently patted my head with concern. “Why are you eating so little, sweetie? You’re getting so thin.” My mom, Clara, chimed in from the side, her voice dripping with sarcasm. “She’s growing up. She’s starting to care about her looks. Unlike me. After I had her, I gained so much weight and never lost it.” Arthur didn’t notice the coldness in her eyes. Without even looking up, he agreed, “True, you are a bit on the heavier side now. It’s not healthy. You should go on a diet.” Right after Arthur left the house, Clara marched into my room, holding the hot rice cooker pot. She grabbed the back of my neck and slammed my face straight into the scalding hot rice. “Eat! I said eat! Eat until you throw up!” “Always playing the fake little angel in front of him! Let’s see you play dead now!” The boiling hot rice pressed hard against my cheek. Every single grain felt like a branding iron. “M-Mom… it burns…” I struggled wildly, my hands clawing at the air, but her grip on my neck was like steel. “Burns? Good! It should burn!” Clara’s voice hissed in my ear, filled with a twisted, manic excitement. “Don’t you love playing the victim in front of him? I’ll give you something to actually cry about!” Only when the residual heat of the rice finally faded did she roughly let go of me. I collapsed onto the floor, clutching half of my face. The pain was so intense that I couldn’t even scream. I could only make muffled, whimpering sounds like a wounded animal. In the mirror, the left side of my face was blistered and bright red. A few squashed grains of rice still stuck to my skin. I looked pathetic and ridiculous. Clara looked down at me, a twisted sense of satisfaction spreading across her face. “Clean yourself up.” She pulled out a few wet wipes and threw them at my face. “When your father gets back, tell him you were clumsy. Tell him you slipped while carrying hot soup and fell face-first. Got it?” With tears in my eyes, I nodded desperately. I didn’t dare to say no. A few days later, Arthur returned. When he saw the lingering scars on my face, his expression changed instantly. He rushed over to me. “Lily! What happened to your face?” I lowered my head, not daring to look him in the eye. I repeated the lie Clara had forced me to memorize: “…I was clumsy. I slipped.” Clara chimed in right on cue, her voice sounding full of “concern” and mild annoyance. “She’s sixteen, yet she’s still so clumsy.” “Fortunately, the soup wasn’t boiling hot. Otherwise, half her face would have been ruined.” Arthur gently cupped my face, blowing softly on my cheek. “You silly girl. Be careful next time.” His hands were warm and dry. He smelled of tobacco and aftershave. Instinctively, I wanted to lean into his warmth. But behind him, Clara’s gaze felt like poisoned needles stabbing into my back. I quickly took a step back, escaping Arthur’s touch. “Dad, I’m fine. I’m going to my room to do homework.” I fled to my room, shut the door, and slid down against it. The tears fell silently. I wanted so badly to tell Arthur the truth. But I didn’t dare. Arthur loved me, but he loved Clara too. Clara always told me that the only reason Arthur cared about me was because I was her daughter. I believed her. Besides, Arthur was always so busy. Most of the time, we didn’t even see each other once a week. I was nothing but a doll in Clara’s hands, to be played with or broken at her whim. From that day on, I stopped responding to Arthur’s kindness. Because I knew that every ounce of love he showed me would only make Clara burn with jealousy. And later, she would take out all her bottled-up rage on me in the most brutal ways.
From that day on, I deliberately avoided Arthur. On the rare occasions he came home, I locked myself in my room. When he called me for dinner, I always said I wasn’t hungry. When he wanted to talk about school, I answered with one-word grunts. Arthur thought I was just going through a rebellious teenage phase. He only sighed with helplessness. Clara, however, seemed very pleased with my “good behavior.” For a while, the tension in the house eased up. Until Arthur came back from another business trip. He brought back a beautiful white dress for me. “Our Lily will look like an absolute angel in this,” Arthur said, holding the dress against me with a proud, beaming smile. Looking at the dress, I didn’t feel joy. I felt a cold, paralyzing terror. Sure enough, Clara’s face darkened instantly. She forced a stiff smile. “Why buy her a white dress? It gets dirty so easily. Besides, her skin isn’t as fair as mine. It’ll just make her look washed out.” Arthur, completely oblivious to her jealousy, said cheerfully, “No way! Lily has your complexion. She’s fair and beautiful. I remember you used to love white dresses when you were young. Back then…” “Enough!” Clara snapped, her voice sharp and screeching. “That was a long time ago! Why bring it up!” Arthur froze, startled by her sudden outburst. Trying to clear the awkwardness, he chuckled, “Alright, alright, I won’t. Lily, go try it on.” Holding the dress, it felt like a hot coal burning my hands. I wanted to refuse. I wanted to tell Arthur I hated white dresses. But looking at his expectant, loving eyes, the words clogged in my throat. “Go on, Lily. Go try it on. Your dad spent a long time picking this out for you.” “Yeah, your dad bought this specifically for you. He didn’t even get me anything. Go put it on. Show your dad…” Clara smiled sweetly, but her eyes were cold as daggers. I had no choice. I walked into my room with a heavy heart. I put on the dress and lingered inside for as long as I could before stepping out. The moment Arthur saw me, his eyes lit up. “Beautiful! So beautiful! I knew it, my daughter is the prettiest girl in the world!” He pulled out his phone, snapping photos of me non-stop. Clara stood right behind him. She didn’t say a word, just stared at me with murderous eyes. In that moment, I didn’t feel like a girl in a pretty new dress. I felt like a prisoner standing on the scaffold, waiting for the blade to fall. That night, Arthur went to bed early, exhausted from his trip. Just as I finished my shower, my bedroom door creaked open. Clara walked in. In her hand, she held a pair of sharp kitchen scissors. “Put the dress on,” she commanded. “Mom, it’s so late…” “I said, put it on!” With trembling hands, I pulled the white dress back over my body. Clara looked at me with satisfaction, then raised the scissors. “Snip—” A long lock of my dark hair fell onto the pristine white fabric. She grabbed my hair, cutting it chunk by chunk. In the mirror, my long, beautiful hair was hacked into an ugly, uneven mess. Tears welled up in my eyes, but I forced myself not to let them fall. “Fair skin? Like me?” Clara mocked, whispering harshly in my ear as she cut. “What makes you think you can ever compare to me?” “You are nothing but a tool I birthed to keep him tied to me. To secure my place!” “And now you want to wear white dresses like me? You don’t deserve it!” She threw the scissors aside, grabbed my head by the hair, and slammed it hard against the mirror. “Crash!” The mirror shattered. Through the web of cracks, I saw my own broken, tear-stained face.
Arthur was still incredibly busy. He left early the next morning. By the time he returned a few weeks later, the bruise on my forehead had faded. My hacked hair had grown out slightly, looking like an edgy pixie cut. Arthur was surprised at first, but then he smiled. “Our Lily looks great with short hair too! I know what this is—it’s called a cool, modern look, right?” I hesitated, wanting to say something, but the moment I caught Clara’s warning glare from the kitchen, I kept my mouth shut. Soon, it was my sixteenth birthday. Arthur said he had missed too many of my birthdays because of work, and he promised to make it up to me this year. He started planning two weeks in advance. He ordered a cake from the best bakery in town and took a whole day off just to spend it with me. On the morning of my birthday, he woke me up early, excitedly holding out a small velvet box. “Happy birthday, Lily! My baby girl is another year older.” I opened the box. Inside was a delicate silver locket. Arthur smiled and clicked it open. Inside was a photo of him from his younger days—handsome, tall, and smiling. “When I’m not around, this locket will protect you for me.” A warmth bloomed in my chest, and my eyes grew hot. But when I looked up and saw Clara standing in the doorway, the blood in my veins turned to ice. She was standing there in her messy loungewear, hair uncombed, face pale. She stared at the locket in my hand with a look of pure, consuming madness. Arthur followed my gaze and smiled at her. “Clara, look at this. Doesn’t it look beautiful on Lily?” Clara didn’t say a word. Slowly, very slowly, she pulled her lips back into a smile that looked more like a corpse’s grimace. Cold sweat broke out across my body. I instinctively reached up to take the necklace off. But Arthur stopped my hand. “Keep it on. It’s your birthday present from me.” That day, Clara was unusually quiet. She even cooked a big dinner filled with my favorite foods. She kept putting food on my plate, smiling warmly the entire time. But underneath that calm surface, I could feel a volcano ready to erupt. Sure enough, by evening, Arthur’s phone rang. It was an emergency at work. He had to fly out immediately. “Lily, I’m so sorry. I can’t stay to blow out the candles with you,” he said guiltily, stroking my hair. “When I get back, I promise I’ll bring you an even bigger present to make it up to you, okay?” I grabbed the edge of his coat, shaking my head desperately, my eyes begging him. “Don’t go, Dad. Please don’t leave me alone with her.” But he didn’t understand. He just thought I was being affectionate. He smiled and comforted me, “Silly girl, I’ll be back before you know it.” The front door clicked shut. His footsteps faded down the hallway. The apartment fell into a dead, suffocating silence. Clara slowly stood up. Her slippers dragged against the hardwood floor. Step by step, she walked toward me. I froze, too terrified to look back. “Did you have a nice birthday?” her voice whispered from behind me. A shiver ran up my spine. She walked around to face me, then knelt down so we were eye-to-eye. She reached out, her fingers gently tracing the silver locket around my neck. Her touch was incredibly soft, as if she were handling a priceless treasure. “It’s so beautiful,” she whispered. “So much more beautiful than the one he gave me the year we got married.” Suddenly, her fingernails dug viciously into my skin. “You cheap little slut… are you trying to steal my husband from me now?”
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