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My stepmother. I should actually call this article My Cinderella Story.

I have never been really close to my dad. He was practically a stranger to me, always working or out. My mum was my whole world and when she died of ovarian cancer I was twelve. My world crumbled before my very eyes. My dad was in charge of my life now. A year or so later he told me that he was seeing someone but that it wasn't really serious. I met her soon after that. She came with her sister to my house on some kind of reconnaissance mission I felt. She was taking possession of her new territory. It was summer, my dad send me to camp in the UK, when I got back she had moved in. My mother's clothes had been thrown away, her bathroom cabinet had been emptied. My heart bled that day, SHE had removed every trace of my mother's presence, even her perfume had gone. I realise that day that I was just a guest in my own house.

I remained silent, scared of voicing my pain by fear of rejection. Her name is Brigitte, she stole my childhood. At 13 I had to cope with her coldness. she never raised her voice at me or was directly mean but she never misse a chance of showing how selfish I was or how chubby I was or I was to fail at this or that because I wasn't good enough. She built a world of silence and quiet dislike around us. My dad went along with it, as long as I wasn't making a fuss he was happy.

I was sent to boarding school a year later, for my own good he said, I needed structure he said. Then they went on holidays without me, and they got married, and had a baby. Slowly I was cast aside.

I had to give up my bedroom for the first baby, when the second was on the way my dad decided that at 18 it was time for me to have my own apartment.

All those years I hated her quietly, she made me feel so inadequate, so unwanted and ugly. They were building this little new family without me, I was just a satellite, an excess baggage. My anger came out much later, too late I suppose. At 18 you are still defining yourself and I was defining myself in anger and pain. I did many mistakes, I invented myself a new life, I lied to people trying to live in this imaginary new me. It wrecked many friendships. I had dumped my old friends because they were reminding me about what I was trying to escape. I was desperately alone.

Eventually I left. Quietly, Cowardly perhaps, I left like I had lived for so many years. I had lost my mother at 12 but perhaps my dad before that. Brigitte was the catalyst. For that I hate her, but mostly I am angry at my father for having let her ruin our relationship.

It has been over 12 years now since I have last seen my father. They have 2 daughters. One I have known for the first year of her life the second I have never met. I doubt that I ever will.

I have mourned my mother's death and made peace with it, my father's loss not so much. My hatred for Brigitte, I cannot let go. She abused her position, I was a child and she was suppose to be my family.

Learn more about this author, Catherine Perez.
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