Once upon a chance

The Perfect Family part 3

She was very aware that her conception was totally unplanned and accidental. She had heard that story many times from her mother especially. She never failed to bring it up while 'educating' her on what a failure and total disgrace she was to the family. It used to really sting when she heard that, but not anymore. Well if she was being honest, it still stung, but a whole lot less than before. Her mother's pill had expired, and that was how she came into existence. At the time, her parents had just been announced to receive the Humanitarian Icon Award and were being celebrated not just in Nigeria but also abroad. With this award, their influence would expand beyond the country and continue to grow. They were in the top one per cent the got invited to those prestigious parties with very important people like the presidents, not just the president of Nigeria but other countries as well. At the time, because of how busy they were, they didn't realise they were pregnant with her till her mother literally gave birth to her because she couldn't stop writhing in pain from what she thought was food poisoning. It was a cryptic pregnancy. She just happened to pop out a day before the ceremony. She understood that this was the breaking straw as they couldn't attend the ceremony due to so many eyes being on them. They couldn't just leave her and attend the party just after they had her. They weren't too happy about this, but they had to live up to their 'humanitarianism' and play the perfect parents to the perfect children. The thought of everyone worshipping them like God's to them was exhilarating and fulfilling. And nobody could take that away from them, not even their children. To everyone outside, they were the perfect example of what a family should be. The news, newspapers, talk shows, bloggers, etc., talked about their families and how much they envied the children for having such loving parents. Pfft... if only they knew intimate details of what really went down outside the cameras, their envy would turn to gratitude for being born into the family they are in right now. Because her family was not all that the media and her parents had made it out to be. Since they were born, basically all they had to do or study was what their parents wanted them to do, not what they wanted to do. Her siblings did everything just the way their parents had designed it. They had a choice but chose to be robots and not do things their own way. Maybe they were afraid of making mistakes, having people laugh at them, and not living up to their parent's expectations. Just like their parents, her siblings have come to value people's respect so much that they do any and everything to earn it, even going against their own desires. The whole situation was both laughable and messy at the same time. She thinks she's the only one with the brains in the family but her family clearly thinks otherwise. She knows they all think she shouldn't have been born in the first place. She was just a nuisance who was useless at everything. But in order for the family to keep that clean image in public, they always covered the 'shame' that is her. They secretly paid off teachers, clubs, paparazzi, and basically anyone who had witnessed the not-so-perfect side of their family to keep them shut and the public image as clean as possible. This seems to work every time. She was amazed because she knew there were a select few out there who knew of her family's real status, but they dared not say anything; instead, they closed their eyes and ears and pretended like they knew nothing, but who could blame them? They need money to feed their families or to buy nice, expensive things for themselves, and when has that ever hurt anybody? It was clear anyone looking to sling mud at the family was just wasting their energy and efforts because no matter the plan their fellow fame-seeking opponents had as a way to pull them down, their parents had people paid or ready to fight bloody for their honour. Since she began to understand things, she had seen how this bloody fight had crushed their previous opponents so hard that they moved out of the country or voluntarily stepped away from public eyes. It was that ruthless, and when people began to suspect that the family had a hand in the total disgrace of their opponents, the media would be plastered all over with 'words of wisdom on how not to trouble the righteous because you would fall deep into an abyss and there's no way to make it out' its true what they say except using the words righteous. There was nothing righteous about her family. The preferred word would be villainous. She had seen the results of it, and mostly, they ended up in death. It's not like her parents murdered those families, but they might as well have. This is all due to keeping the perfect family image just for public consumption.