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Amity felt a tug in her heart. She gave out a sharp sob and attempted to choke out a few words for someone to hear. Someone. Someone who wasn't here. She didn't know how old she was when she lost her mother, Odalia must have loved her daughter at some point. But that was very hard to believe when lately - the past decade or so - all she ever heard from her were threats, critics, yells, and punishing words.
She cursed her father for not stepping in. He could've stopped the overflowing pain, all that endless suffering she had to endure. But he wasn't really there most of the time, too busy pushing all his misery into work until his last breaths. It wasn't like he didn't know, of course he knew, it wasn't that hard to miss after all. But none of that should matter - she was by far used to having to swallow down bitter words filled with poison, anger, but a desperate cry for love. But it would be unanswered anyway.
Useless.
Just like every word that seemed to left Amity's mouth lately. Her useless performative words to her friends just to keep them close for the image of her so called 'mother'. Her useless words to her teachers which they never listened to, not like her lines were of truth - just complete junk filled with faked respect to please them.
Guilt pulled on her heart everytime she had seen Willow on the school halls, a constant reminder that she was not any better than her mother, that she pushed people down. Looks like she lived up to her family's name after all: kicking and spitting on who isn't quite as strong while already on the ground just to make herself percieved as taller, better, the best. Not that she was good. She wasn't. She knew she wasn't. But she had to be better, better than anyone, number one, first in class, first in line, first in power. It's ironic really, how someone so bad could be "better" than everyone else. That day when her golden star was given to Willow - she could barely think of that time without shame eating her alive - her throne built with years of hard work had shattered. Suddenly anyone who said a word to her, her "friends", her teachers, a random weirdo from school, they all looked like they wanted her place, to push her down into the mud she had kicked them into.
Amity remembered that day all too well, it keeps coming back in her nightmares, taunting her and telling her how much of a weakling she had become. Her mother was furious. She was boiling with rage even before Amity stepped into the house. Her hands and back ached for a week os so after, the red mark on her face in the shape of a cruel hand disappeared in a day in sight, but the feeling lingered for much longer. The shame, the hurt, the tightness in her cheek on the left side when she talked or moved her mouth in any way; it all brought back her mother's image, those piercing cold blue eyes and how they glinted with a snake's poison.
"It's for your own good, Amity. I'm only doing what's best for you. You are a Blight. It is by far time you learned this. Never mire our family in such a way ever again."