I’m pretty sure that I inherited my blunt-ness from my father. He’s always been the kind of person to say awkward things without much ado. But I also inherited his stubbornness, and his selfishness.

That day I came home, slung my rucksack over the banister and stomped loudly up the stairs, foul from the feuds of friendships in trouble again that day, when a voice yelled at me to stop making such a God awful racket. And then I flipped.

“Who are you to tell me to shut up after all the racket you and her make every night!” I screamed.

“Don’t you speak to me like that.”

“I can’t beleive you shacked up with that whore 2 months after mum died.”

The slap stung the bare skin of my cheek and a tear welled over my green eyes, more from the shock than the pain itself.

“Get out,” he snarled. And I did. I packed and left within the hour, and he didn’t try to stop me.

I guess it was true what she, the whore, the Wicked Stepmother said. I would always end up in the gutter.

It was all in the genes.