The house was always quite.

From the outside, the house stood like a normal house

but from inside, it wasn't a home

it was a place were Abby survived. She didn’t belong there.

Not because she was adopted but because they never let her forget it.

 

Carl was ten, and was already cruel

He didn’t just tease Abby but enjoyed seeing her flinch. He liked her pain.

He’d break things and blame her. He’d push her when no one was looking.

He once whispered in her ear:

“You should’ve burned with your real parents.”

She didn’t tell anyone.

She already knew how that would go.

The mother would smile when Carl made her cry.

She once said, “Well, maybe if you stopped acting like a victim, he’d stop.”

The father was no better.

The father once threw away a picture Abby had drawn and said her

to not waste any paper .

 

Melvin was the only one who cared. He was seven. But not too young to notice.

He saw it all.

He hated it.

He didn’t know why his family acted this way, but he knew Abby didn’t deserve it.

She waited until night. That’s when she’d let the tears fall quietly.

Sometimes Melvin sit beside her when she cried. Sometimes he’d say:

“You’re my real sister.”

And every time she hear this, she’d smile

a small one, just for him

 

On a sunny afternoon, Abby and Melvin were playing hide and seek.

She ran to hide—behind the bushes, beneath an open window.

She reached up, quietly, ready to climb in and scare Melvin from behind.

But Carl saw her.

He was already in the room.

Watching.

Waiting.

He walked over to the window—slow, silent.

And without saying a word—

he slammed it shut.

Hard.

Abby screamed. Her fingers twisted wrong, bent and broken.

The kind of scream that echoed into the trees.

Carl didn’t flinch.

He looked at her through the glass and said,

“That was an accident.”

Then walked away.