the kids are depressed

•ALEX

"Alex woke up and started to dance..."

One thing about Alex? She'll kill for Rema...and dancing, but Rema first, and it's no surprise that she was doing both that morning when she started hearing her Dad yell at her stepmother about her Stepbrother who was also her best friend: Sam.

She didn't know how her dad had managed to impregnate her mum and Samson's mum at the same time, but he did and she'd somehow gotten the weirdest twin in the world, although Sam came a few months before she did.

She was taken from her mother at the tender age of 6 and it has always been a traumatizing experience for her. Her father's excuse to her was that she needed to be in a developed space at the time, but nothing was developed about living with Sam's mother. It was a nightmare.

She never knew how to do anything right no matter how much she tried and only Sam's younger sister was the perfect child—even when she and Sam knew the hidden sides of her.

She would stay up late as a little girl gazing at the stars and wondering how her mother was fairing without her. She felt kidnapped if she was going to be honest. Her father had told her mother to send her over for the weekend after ignoring her for 6 years and that was when he informed her that she was never going back to her mum anymore. He kept trying to convince her that it was for her own good, but the man was never around to see his wife for who she truly was, and although Sam was her best friend, she still couldn't fight the feeling of being cheated whenever she was left alone with Sam, his sister and their mother.

At age 11, she was made to do all sort of tedious house chores and whenever her elder siblings came home and complained to their father about how their step mother was overworking their sister, the stepmother would always make a innocent face while swearing that she was only training Alex and that her daughter (who was only 6 at the time, or was it 5? Whatever, you get the point) was also going to go through the same level of training when she got to age 11. Alex was 16 now and the woman's daughter's laziness only got worse and anytime Alex complained, the step mother would bring up a new excuse about how the girl was the last born, it was absolutely pathetic, it was even more pathetic that Alex knew nothing could be done about it. Sam's mother was good at lying, manipulating and covering things up so well that her husband always saw her as the virtuous woman who only wanted the best for his demonic kids from his first marriage.

Rema and dancing was her only form of escape and she didn't joke with it.

That morning she was listening to Calm Down when she saw the door to her room fly open as soon as the noise died down. It was her stepmother and she looked furious. Alex wasn't a stranger to her stepmother's transfer of aggression whenever her own kids were caught in the act by their father who she'd portrayed as sweet and blameless until it was just too hard to hide Sam's nuisances.

"What are you doing?" She sized Alex down and noticed her sweaty face.

"I'm working out," Alex said. Dancing was a form of workout.

"Is that what you should be doing? Who's going to cook for you? Oh, you're thinking of going to your school's excursion abi?"

"Yes ma. We're all going." She spoke up to the woman for the first time and noticed the brief look of shock on her face.

"What if I say you're not going?" The woman lowered her voice and looked back to make sure that Alex's dad wasn't within earshot.

"Why would you say that?"  Alex asked again and she watched the woman blink in more shock. She'd unknowingly given Alex the power to be rude by acting devious, and Alex intended to milk every part of it.

"Is it me you're talking to like that!" The woman raised her voice in the hope that Alex's father was going to interfere but no one came forth. The disappointment on her face was satisfying.

"I didn't talk to you anyhow, ma. I just asked why you would ASK ME NOT TO GO TO SCHOOL AFTER I HAVE DONE ALL MY HOUSE CHORES DOWN SINCE LAST NIGHT!" She equally raised her own voice and the woman staggered and began to step back in fear. She'd never seen Alex react that way before.

"You've started growing wings abi?" The woman shook her forefingers at the girl with a death glare.

"Please ma, I've done nothing wrong to you, just let me—," the woman heard Alex's dad walking up the stairs and ran out. Alex bursted into laughter and rolled on the floor. She picked her phone up and dialed my number. "I did it."

"Did what?" I asked.

"I finally stood up to the stupid woman—you needed to have seen her face, she was shocked, Temi!"

"Hope you weren't rude oo, you don't want to give her reasons to report you to your dad."

"I played the game you asked me to play and she fell for it—I'm done with this woman and her bullying. I can't take it anymore. She's been maltreating me all these years, she broke my mother's home and gallops around like she's the first wife and no one is contending with her, why won't she just let me be?"

"She's insecure. She's afraid. It's normal. Calm down, so are you coming to school?"

"Why not!"

"Cool, How's your brother?"

"Step brother." She corrected and I could just picture her emphasizing the words with a gesture of her forefinger and thumb. "He's fine, I guess."

"Please confirm, I just texted him now and he didn't sound fine."