Love Me Or I Die

CHAPTER 5

Stella could not think straight when she started to panic. She tilted her head down and thought of an idea as she glanced over to her daughter. She grabbed  Lucia’s small hand in haste and put it in front of the doctor.

“Sophia, look. It won’t hurt. Even your sister is doing it.” She pulled at Lucia's arm as she said it while the little girl, on the other hand, struggled out of her grasp.

“This child is not sick. Why do you want me to draw her blood?” The doctor gave the little girl a strange look. But Stella had sent him some stern look and warnings, and so he held Lucia's thin elbow against the table.

“Mummy, can I not do this, too? I’m scared…” She started pulling on Stella’s blouse. She squeezed her tiny frame in fear.

“Stella, you don’t have to do this. Right?” Even Steven couldn’t bear to look at her.

“Draw…” Stella hardened herself. She went over and took over Sophia, “Look, your sister has already done it.”

The doctor gave a sigh of frustration. Even the mother did not feel sorry about putting her daughter through such stress, so why should he?

Lucia bit her tiny lips as she looked at the syringe. For the little girl, the needle seemed thicker than her arm. She managed to stifle a cry of pain when it finally pricked her tiny elbow. Tears only started to flow down her eyes when she lowered her head.

“Mummy, It’s painful for me… .”

She stole a peek at her mother. All she saw was her mother coaxing Sophia. She had not even looked in her direction.

“Sophie, did you see that? She doesn’t feel the pain. Drawing blood is not painful at all.” Stella  kept talking to her and reassured her in a soothing voice.

Not painful. Not painful?

“That was not right. Mummy… it really hurts.”

She was not sick but she had to let the doctor draw a huge tube of blood. Because she was older, she had to set an example for her little sister.

It was Sophia’s turn. When the needle from the syringe pierced her blood vessel, she wailed in pain. Daddy was comforting her and mummy was crying.

All the while, Lucia stood there alone. For the first time, she really felt she was unwanted.

That year, Sophia was five and she was six.

*******

“I don’t want a bald head. No.” Sophia looked at her shiny ball of a head. She hit her step mother hard. “Mummy, I hate this look. It is so ugly. I don’t want to see anyone.”

Because she was sick, she needed to shave her head bald and it made her look ugly. She was raging in jealousy as she glared at Lucia who stood at the side as if flaunting her shiny dark hair that reached her waist.

Stella closed her eyes. Her eyes dimmed as if she had made a decision.

“Mummy… ” As they stood in front of the mirror, Lucia pulled at her mother’s blouse and she refused to let go. She used so much force that her blood vessels could be seen protruding on her hand. “Mummy, please don’t cut my hair. Please? I’ll be good. I won’t show myself in front of sister.”

Stella picked up a pair of scissors from the table. She hardened herself mentally and cut her daughter’s hair off without an ounce of sympathy for her.

“Mummy… why?" Lucia looked at all of her hair that had fallen on the floor. Her eyes were a blur as it was brimmed with tears. And as she lowered her head, she allowed the tears to flow. One after the other the tears fell as if they were raindrops hitting the ground. As far as she could remember, she never once cut her hair and had it ever since. But just like that, it was gone.

And her mother had shaved her bald just so her step sister had company. Just to make Sophia happy.

Now bald, she stood in front of Steven and his daughter. Sophia laughed happily while her father pulled his wife aside with guilt. It was on that day that he also decided to treat Lucia even better in the future.

Lucias’s eyes reddened as she walked out. She did not even dare to look at herself in the mirror. Any little girl at aged six would have wanted to look beautiful. Moreover, she had already started school at that age.

“Lucia is an ugly duckling. Her father’s not fond of her, and her mother does not love her. Nobody even likes her bald head…” the children at school mocked and bullied her. She sat alone on her seat as she opened her little school bag that contained her long locks of hair.

No… no… she was not ugly. She wasn’t ugly. She had a father and a mother. But no one loved her.

That year, she was seven and Sophia was six.

“Daddy, Mummy, I scored eighty marks for my test!” While Sophia coyly showed off her test paper with eighty marks, Lucia hid in her tiny room. She was clutching the two test papers with one hundred marks.

“Mummy, Lucia scored one hundred marks…”

“Oh yes. How much did she score?” Her father began to remember that he had another daughter. Stella’s demeanor changed slightly, “She is dumb, only scored sixty.” At the mention of sixty, Sophia began to laugh even more gleefully.

“That’s alright,” Steven simply comforted his wife, “even if she only scored fifty.” Their family could still afford to feed her.

Lucia could only look at the family of three and closed the door.

When night fell, Stella amended the marks on all her test papers and wrote a big ‘ sixty ‘. “Remember, Lucia, do not tell Sophia that you scored one hundred. You cannot do better than her because you are her older sister. You must give in to your sister.”

Lucia nodded her head already knowing the drill. As her older sister, she must give in to her younger sister.

“Lucia, you must apply for music. Do you understand?” Her sister was feeling lonely. Lucia kept her easel without any feeling. She had wanted to apply and major in arts. But she knew that with the type of family she has, she was powerless to change anything. She could only do what they wanted her to do.

So, she gave up her favourite subject—art. She applied for music which wasn’t what she was good at. Sophia has always been the princess and she was just a prop in the background. She couldn’t be prettier, couldn’t be better, couldn’t score higher grades. Even when she applied for university, she could only apply for those in the ‘D’ league because Sophia was applying for the ‘C’ league. In actual fact, with her results she could have applied for those in the ‘A’ league.

That year, she held her exam paper in one hand and a pen in the other. Finally, she wrote her name on the paper but she only answers half of the questions in the paper.

She thought that was all there was to her life. Her family would continue to control everything about her, including her life and her marriage. She did not realize she was wrong until she saw him on that day.

“Sister, look. This is my boyfriend.”  Lucia smiled so sweetly. Her arms were looped around a man’s. He looked mature and introverted. And with the hand-made tailored suit with a matching shirt that he was wearing, he stood among the crowd with an air of exceptional grandeur.

He was exceptionally handsome. Aristocracy was written all over his face and one could not help but notice a domineering edge about him. There was depth in his long, narrow gaze, almost as if it was extremely invasive.

Lucia felt a little finger tug tightly at her heart.

“Little brother…”

She could recognized him with one look. He as the one who told her to wait for his return. Her little brother. He had changed. She almost couldn’t recognize him, but somehow she still did.

“Mmm.” The man nodded in Lucia's direction with indifference before he turned away. He moved his hand towards Sophia and caressed her hair. Finally he rested his hand on the amulet that hung around her neck. His eyes glimmered with a faint look of warmth.