beautiful thieves | ✓

one

I really, really don't like my mother.

I know, I should be respectful towards my elders, but it's difficult to be respectful to a racist, homophobic and generally hateful woman who has been controlling my life from the start and has forced the family to pack up and move numerous times for some ridiculous reason.

'A gay couple just moved in next door, maybe we should move' and 'I refuse to let my children play with someone called Larissa' are some of my personal favourites. There are more. A lot more.

Then there's the fighting. We fight a lot, verbally and sometimes physically. We argue over the most ridiculous things, until the argument builds and builds until it blows up in our faces. It usually ends with one of us getting hit, or me getting locked in my room for a few hours. Or days. Dad's too scared to stand up to her, so she gets away with it.

Another reason why I strongly dislike my mother, is because she is a massive hypochondriac, which is why I'm spending the early hours of Saturday morning sitting in a doctor's office with her. Long story short, she is adamant that I'm pregnant.

"I mean, she's been looking quite flushed recently," my mother tells the doctor, her hand fiddling with the pendant of her favourite necklace. "And she's been looking so tired, the bags under her eyes could carry a week's worth of shopping."

"I'm not pregnant," I say, for what must be the seventeenth time this morning.

The doctor removes his blue-rimmed glasses, rubbing the spot where they had been resting. "The tiredness is usual for any normal teenage girl. Honestly, I'd be more concerned if there weren't any bags under her eyes."

"But--"

"And the flushes are also normal," the doctor continues. "Stress, combined with the fact that she's probably dehydrated, may cause her to get flustered every now and then. It's all normal in a menstruating, teenage girl."

Mum's brow creases, as it always does when she doesn't understand why she's wrong. "But, she told me she missed her period for this month. That must mean something."

The doctor rolls his shoulders in obvious annoyance and I start feeling deeply sympathetic towards the guy, as I do with anyone who is forced to face my mother's wrath for longer than five minutes. "I don't know what to tell you, Mrs Redwood. Your daughter is a seventeen-year-old girl, her periods are bound to go off track every now and then. You did a home pregnancy test and it was negative. We've done a pregnancy test here and it came out negative. Aurora has even stated clearly that she isn't, nor has she ever been, sexually active."

They both look at me and I nod in confirmation. Unless you count making out with some random guy last year while on a school camping trip as being 'sexually active', I'm one-hundred-and-ten percent a virgin.

"I find that hard to believe, though," my mother pushes. I bite my tongue to prevent the groan from rising at the back of my throat. "She's a beautiful young girl. Boys are always wanting to sleep with her. Right, Aurora?"

I open my mouth, struggling for words. "Not particularly, no."

Mum rolls her eyes, her necklace still fluttering between her delicate fingers. "Whatever. I just... she has to be pregnant. She was physically sick this morning, the symptoms are all there."

"It was probably that dodgy food Connie made for us last night," I say.

"Don't bring your sister into this. It couldn't possibly have been her cooking, she's a wonderful cook," she gives the doctor a pointed look as if to say 'yeah, my other daughter is perfectly perfect'. "Besides, I wasn't puking my guts up this morning."