Pushed to be Perfect

Chapter 2: Present day

I open my eyes wide and rigid. I stare at the ceiling and acknowledge the fact that right now I'm being overdramatic and frankly, what I think, no one cares. I scoff at myself, knowing that right now if anyone heard what I thought, I'd be looked down on as someone who's thoughts flew free, like a toddler who's sense has been stripped from oneself.

It's morning, and I can see light seeping in through the crack of my blinds that were unevenly drawn last night.

A loud, resolute banging shook me out of my trance. I sprinted up to see what the commotion was this time.

"...Disastrous. Absolutely unbelievable. If this continues, we'll send you to a boarding school, did you hear me?"

The sound of a slap and then a groan followed. I peeked through the gap between the stairs and the living room. I saw my elder brother, Dexter, on his knees in front of our uncle, who had taken us in when I was five and my brother was ten.

Blood oozed out of my brother's wound where he got slapped daily for one thing or another. This time, it was apparent to be for a test grade. The sight of it made me unknowingly touch my bruises from similar experiences, and I winced.

My uncle looked up to see my face looking down on them, and my brother, still on his knees, turned the un-battered side of his face towards me. He looked down, as if he was guilty. No matter how used to me and my brother were towards this daily behavior, we lived a constant life of fear. Since the day I was five till today, as I stand as fourteen, have not once I felt the joy I felt again when my mother was alive.

"You. Come 'ere," my uncle growled.

I shuffled towards him, as he was watching me trail towards him with those black, searing eyes. 

"Faster!" he hissed. I kneeled next to my brother on the cold floor, and looked down to show guilt, even though I had no idea what to feel guilty for. He looked at us as we looked at his feet, and proceeded to sit down on the navy blue couch situated in the middle of the room. My uncle takes that couch as a throne, its like his prized possession. Not once, has anyone other than him sat on it and if anyone does, God forbid, I wouldn't be surprised if there would be time to say farewell to the unlucky man.

"You both, will be starting school tomorrow. Some ground rules. You will ONLY go to and from school. Nowhere else. Location sharing must be enabled at all times and dare you tell anyone about anything about your private life, you both shall experience much worse. I'm quite capable of that. Anita, you'll be starting ninth grade at Bretwood High. Dexter, you'll be starting your first year of college. Frankly, I'd love to keep you both here where you never see the light of day again. But child protective services will keep pestering me if they don't see school admissions on your record." He turns his head to the side, rolling his eyes and scoffing. 

"Oh, and one more thing. Anita, anything below a ninety-eight is unacceptable. Your uniform is on the table." He gestured towards a ragged box sitting on the countertop in front of him. He stood up, his cowering 6'6 figure looming on top of us. With that, he strutted off into his study and banged the door, which ultimately made us scramble back into our rooms as quietly as possible. 

I brought the old ragged looking box over to my bed, where I didn't hesitate to open it. I had been wanting to go to a school for so long, but these past two years my uncle had been keeping me and Dexter cooped up in the house as the abuse got worse. 

I opened up the packaging, and pulled out an old uniform. But something caught my eye. There was a name tag on it. 

"Nora Syed". 

I froze. I looked down at the badge, and took on chills.

My mother. That was my mother's name.

This uniform was my mother's. 

I took the uniform and spread it across the bed. Underneath the uniform, was my name tag.

"Anita Syed".

I just sat back and ended up staring at the uniform for hours.