Artificial

Prologue:

"Straighten up and stop being a wimp. We're in America now, not Australia. You should be showing a good impression of yourself and polishing your disgusting image." My mother said, sternly. "You're a worthless little brat and you live like a stubborn princess."

I'm Ebony Brandt. I'm awkward, weird and unusual.

Princess? Please.

My mother gripped my elbow tightly and dragged me in front of my bedroom's mirror.

"Look at you." She pointed to my reflection on the mirror. "You look like a disgrace. Your hair, your thighs, your legs."

I gulped, quietly. My throat hitched at her words. No matter how many times I try to pick myself up and gain back my confidence, something is always weighing me down.

All my life, i've been like this.

My younger brother, Josh? He's nothing like me. He's the chick magnet. I dont understand, since we're partly blood related. His biological father isn't mine. My mother is currently with Russell, his biological dad. My brother and I, don't have much of an age gap. We're just one year apart, though, he acts older than me. I can't really do much about it because we both have a big height difference. He's a lot taller, he gets it from his father's genetics.

Basically, we share the same mother.

As for my biological father, Andy? well, he's gone. He left my mother when he found out she was pregnant with me. When realised what he had done wrong, he told her that he wasn't ready to be a father.

My mother, Cheryl was only a teen when she gave birth to me. My biological father, Andy, was only very young, around my age even. So, he isolated my mum with me in her tummy. Little did she know, she'd give birth to an unpleasant-looking baby.

Ever since he left my mum before my birth, I never got the chance to see him and he never got the chance to see me. Well, I think it's better off that way. I don't want to be seen by him, honestly. 

I just hate knowing that fact that, my mother risked her life for nothing. If she knew I'd look like this, I bet she would never even choose to be with my dad in the beginning.

And as for me well, I wouldn't even exist.

If only that would have happened.

As a child, I grew up along with the harsh, criticising words that was thrown at me by my mother. According to her, everything I do is wrong and alI I am, is a waste of space. It feels like every breath that escapes my lungs, ruins every inch of her and my life. But I still live with it. I'm used to it now. It still bothers me, though. It's like a reoccurring nightmare that never ends.

How can I block her critical opprobrium?

Sometimes I just think she's exaggerating. But, she judges everything about me so frequently, that it seems like she's being immoderately serious.

I don't only hate myself because of my appearance, but also for the tormenting events my mum had to go through whilst I was being raised. Well, that's at least what I think.

I can honestly say that I'm a fairly anti-social person. That's only because my appearance is sufficiently irritating and I don't think my personality should be additional to that.

I just want to look beautiful but I want to feel beautiful, too. I dont want to look this way and I definitely don't want to feel like this way, either.

I wish I could just escape from planet Earth or turn into a mermaid and live underwater and hopefully never come back, again. If only I was that lucky.

"What's this?" She pointed to my legs. "All that fat isn't going to go anywhere if you just act like miss innocent and do nothing but shit." She continues,  "All you do is eat, eat and eat and it's not because your hungry, it's because your worthless and bored, and you've got nothing else to do in your life."

She opened a drawer of mine, where my magazines are all neatly stored and organized.

She grabbed a magazine and flicked through a number of pages, until her eyes landed on one particular page. She held up the magazine in front of my face.

"Look at her." She pointed to a girl, who was the perfect example of a potential model. "She has a thigh gap, her hair is a luscious and wavy blonde, her eyes are piercing with the colour of ocean blue." She paused and lowered the magazine. "Now, look at yourself in the mirror again. Tell me do you think that if you keep going on living this way, you will have a future with friends, or a boyfriend, or husband, or a family or even a life?"

I turned to face the mirror and stared at my reflection while tears instantly running down my cheeks, effortlessly. I was disgusting life-less. No one will ever like.. this thing of me. 

"Now, you understand." She finished with that and walked out of my room, leaving me anxious and infuriated.

I just travelled to Ohio, America from Australia.

My previous school, was okay. It was average. Everyone there was average. No one was popular, no one looked up to each other and worshipped people like Godessess. None of that happened at school.

Our school was fairly boring and dull.

The people were timidly quiet.

Drama came to no extent.

All in all, life was just average.

Everyone dressed normally and I felt more comfortable and confident about myself.

No one negatively criticised me and it felt good to be around my supportive friends. It was just my mother or often my brother that had to break me down emotionally, on purpose.

Previously, when I was still attending my old school,  I repeatedly refused to take my mothers inimical, disdainful words into consideration and persistently convinced myself that I was nothing that my mother had said of me, because no one at my school thought of me as she did.

Knowing that I've left my school, I feel like all that criticism that she's beeing throwing at me, is actually true. 

And now,  I'm going to have to make new friends - unlikely, a new school, new people, new things, a new life.

And I am going to come across in all of those things, looking like this. 

I groan.

Why do I have to look like this? Why can't I just be like those girls on tv screens, or magazines or modeling shows.

I dont understand.

Everything is wrong with me and I hate it.

I want to change. I hate being like this. I hate experiencing my mother with a disappointed look in her eyes everytime she looks at me and the more she looks at me, the more annoyance she feels.

Do I feel sorry for myself?

No.

I'm Ebony Brandt.

I am awkward, weird and unusual.