Teenage Antichrist Book One: A Journey of a Sister's Hatred 1991-1992

Chapter Six: Personal Attacks

 A month had passed and nothing had changed. Michelle and John still disliked each other and he still hadn't made a move on Natalie. She couldn't figure it out and she wasn't about to ask him to find out why. She was grateful that he hadn't made a move and she wasn't about to tell him that. She was having dinner at the kitchen table with him and their parents when he brought up a subject she hated.

"Speech night is coming up soon," John said. "I'll be winning ten awards."

"That's wonderful, darling," Mrs. Slater said. "Congratulations,"

"You should be really proud of yourself, son," Mr. Slater said.

"Believe me, I am," he said to his father before he turned his attention to Michelle. "So how many awards will you be winning, Michelle?"

So there it was. An unspoken fuck you between brother and sister that she hated that occurred on a yearly basis. Michelle knew John got off on it and she wished she had the guts to say what was really on her mind.

"None," Michelle said flatly.

She knew what was coming next so well she could practically lip sync with her mother.

"Michelle," Mrs. Slater said sternly. "If you had worked harder on your schoolwork then you would get some awards, too,"

She knew what was coming next so well she could practically lip sync with her daughter.

"Mum," Michelle said annoyed. "There are better things in life than awards."

"If you're talking about singing then there's something you should know," Mr. Slater said.

"What's that, Dad?" she asked sarcastically.

"Living with a dream and living with reality are two different things,"

"You don't know what you're talking about,"

"Don't tell me I don't know what I'm talking about. You're only sixteen. You have no idea how the world works."

Michelle hated it when people told her how the world worked. As far as she was naively concerned she was old enough to know exactly what life was really like.

*****

Although Michelle and Natalie were no longer in danger of homophobic violence they still had to walk to school. Natalie didn't mind as she hated walking to school alone but Michelle minded because school was too far away. Although John was going to win ten awards there was one thing that Michelle did like about speech night.

"So are you going to sing at speech night this year?" Natalie asked.

Earlier in the year, Michelle had wowed the audience with her singing in the high school musical "Villains" and had been approached to sing again at speech night. But there was a problem.

"Yeah, but I'm really nervous about it," Michelle replied.

Natalie thought that was insane because Michelle had the greatest voice she ever heard.

"Why?" Natalie asked surprised.

"Ms. Mathis has been really tough on me," Michelle said.

The reason Michelle had an incredible singing voice was because of her singing teacher Ms. Mathis. She always demanded perfection and Michelle couldn't always give it to her.

*****

The next morning John was ordered to take Michelle to her singing lesson as their parents were usually too busy. He didn't believe that as he suspected they didn't want to do it. As the air conditioning in his car wasn't working they drove with their windows down. Michelle and John never talked on the drive to Ms. Mathis's house in Alexandra Hills but he was still enjoying the feeling of being superior to her and decided to say something.