Things We Inherit: A Novel by Draven Aurora

Author:Draven Aurora [Aurora, Draven]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2023-06-08T16:00:00+00:00

Chapter 23

Joy, Age 14

Although she now lived beyond her grandmother’s reach, Joy still felt Sarah’s roots in her everyday actions. She threw up at night, thinking no one heard her.

She had spent the last hour picking herself apart in the mirror, cursing the acne that never healed as she layered on foundation, the weight she never seemed to be able to lose from her thighs. She pinched at the fat, her eyes falling to the small strawberry patch on her left leg. It was a birthmark, a strip of red, raised skin that closely resembled a burn.

Joanne loved it, as she seemed to love all of Joy’s flaws.

Not in a kind way, the way a mother should love their daughter. No, Joanne loved anything that made Joy imperfect, anything that proved that Joy wasn’t as pretty or as smart as she was. Joanne loved being the most interesting person in the room more than she could ever love another person.

Sometimes Joy wondered about her mom. She wondered why her mother’s love was conditional. She wondered if her mother even still thought of her after she moved in with Trini and Connor.

Secrets about Joy’s life, about her family, were never revealed when they should have been. The things that put her at the most risk were hidden until it was far too late, and the things that would hurt her the most were told to her far too young. As with so many things that Joy wouldn’t find out until she was older, her mother did think of her. Too much, actually. So much so that she threatened Trini, threatening to take Clara and Joy away from the life they were slowly getting accustomed to. So much so that Charlie, their uncle, had to drive around their small town to make sure no one had seen Joanne lately and had to patrol the roads to their house when the girls got home from school.

And now, Joy stood in front of the mirror, her head cocking to the side as she continued to look at herself, examining her reflection to see how much of her mother she had in her. She wondered how much she looked like the father she had never met. She wondered when the taste in her mouth, the bitter result of the vomit that still remained in the toilet, would fade. She was grateful it would fade, unlike the eyes she shared with her grandmother and the nose she shared with her mother. Those were constant, a permanent reminder of the past.

“Joy?” Connor tapped lightly on the bathroom door. “Are you alright?”

Joy flushed quickly, patting her cheeks and forcing a smile onto her lips as she cracked the door open.

“Yup!” she said.

“Were you throwing up?”

How incredibly blunt, and yet typical of Connor. He had no filter between his mouth and his words, often regretting the things he said mere seconds later.

She swallowed, opening the door slightly wider.

“Yeah. I think it might be the Takis. They’re pretty spicy. They burn both going down and coming back up.

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