Dodging Disasters ✔

Chapter Two

2. Mom Turns President Snow

I'm blinded by the sudden brightness in the room, as the lights are switched on, all at once. I hold on to Jason's hand tightly and slowly open my eyes, expecting mom to be standing in front of me with a gun.

As my eyes adjust to the light, I take in my surroundings. A long table is present in front of me, with chairs on either side of it, all of them empty. I see a vase on the table with a single white rose and shudder at the thought of President Snow.

A huge screen at the far end of the wall comes alive suddenly and mom appears on it, giving us her million dollar smile. Her blue eyes look green because of the contact lenses she is wearing for her upcoming movie and her naturally blonde hair is dyed black.

She laughs evilly, reminding me of the Disney villain - Cruella De Vil.

"Oh, my lovely kids!" she exclaims, clasping her hands and feigning happiness. "Hope I didn't scare you! You know how much mommy loves drama!"

We stare at her, our faces impassive. Jason and I have always believed that our mom needed psychiatric treatment. But whenever we saw her interacting with other people, the thought quickly vanished because she seemed quite normal. The psycho in her was visible only when she was with the people she detested - her kids and her ex-husband.

Looking at her on the screen, I wonder what it must have been like for Dad, all those years ago - having fallen in love with her before everything turned to shit. My parents had dated for seven years and were madly in love when they got married. My mom was trying her luck at modelling around the same time, but she wasn't achieving any success, and yet my father supported her through all of her struggles.

Six months after I was born, she was offered a modelling contract in London, which she immediately accepted, without even giving it a second thought. She left two-year-old Jason and six-month-old me with my father, and went off without even bothering about us.

Obviously, Dad was furious and he filed for divorce as soon as she returned home - 4 months later. Sadly, my parents separated even before my first birthday.

They fought for custody and unfortunately, Mom won. Dad would keep meeting us for a few months regularly but that stopped as soon as mom achieved global fame because she didn't want anyone to find out about us or him.

By the time I was four years old, mom had five movies and a music album to her name. In an industry where people struggle for years, my mom had it easy and I still don't know how. Maybe I was extremely lucky for her but she never thought about it that way.

She never told the media that she had been married and had two kids. So no one actually knows that we exist.

Having been home-schooled till I was thirteen, I had no idea why mom felt the need of enrolling me in a school thereafter but I'm sure it was another way of troubling me. I was always scared that someone would find out about her but no one ever did.

I was the girl who got bullied by others because I couldn't stand up for myself. I was shy, fat and had braces. Being the girl who had a secret, who was constantly hiding something - the bullies took it upon themselves to force the truth out of me.

But the bullying didn't last long because he came along.

He made me realise that it wasn't going to work out like this. If I kept silent, I'd be bullied for the rest of my life.

My eyes fill with tears at the thought of him. Even after all these years, even after my major transformation, physical as well as mental, nothing could change the fact that I still love him. I can't ever forget him.