"Oh by the way... Aren't you forgetting something???"
Aunt Caroline suddenly asked Syra as she presented her open palm in front of Syra's face
"We all have to contribute.."
She added while waiting for Syra to hand her what she wanted.
"Remind me how we are all contributing again???"
Syra, on the other hand, could not help but leave a sarcastic remark as she handed to her stepmom her hard-earned money.
"You. Are. So. UNGRATEFUL!"
Aunt Caroline said that word by word to rebuke Syra's comment.
"And how am I ungrateful?! I worked six hours a day at Santa Land. I do holiday singing grams every nigh---"
"Quit bragging at my face?!!!"
Aunt Caroline refuted her and shouted at her face but unlike before, it was not able to shut Syra up.
It seemed that Syra could not be stopped anymore and she retorted right away.
Probably having enough of the other party's attitude, the young girl decided to finally make her stand.
"I'M NOT BRAGGING! I- I- I just would like to keep some of my tip money since you won't give me any of the money my dad left me..."
Syra said in a flat tone although the contempt on her face was so obvious. On normal occasions, Syra would not usually argue with her Aunt Caroline.
However, on that particular night, she felt different.
Maybe because there was this part of her that was thinking that since that would be the last night that she would be going to face that abusive stepmom of hers, then she might as well make good use of it.
She badly wanted to shout at her Aunt Caroline's face and tell her that she was being too much, once and for all.
Truth be told, Syra already had a lot of bottled up emotions deep inside her and it was as though those pent up emotions were coursing in her veins right at that very moment, threatening to burst her apart from the inside.
Her emotions were so overwhelming to the point that she was already starting to tear up. Yet at the last moment, Syra decided to remain silent.
After her last sentence, she just entered a staring contest with her Aunt Caroline. For she knew that whatever she would say next would only be pointless.
Usually, her words of protest would only fell on deaf ears and that was what precisely happened.
Aunt Caroline did not seem to be bothered at all nor at least affected even just a bit by Syra's sudden outburst. If any, the other party even believed that it was her who had the moral high ground and Syra was actually the one acting out of the board.
"Your dad gave it to me to use as I see fit until you turned 18 and I don't see fit otherwise."
Aunt Caroline reasoned to Syra while raising one of her upturned eyebrows.
"Why???"
Syra asked so as she could finally understand why they had been doing all those shit to her on her entire life. Her voice was breaking a little as they reached that point.
Yet it seemed that Aunt Caroline suddenly got offended by her inquiries.
"How dare you?! Your father left me a widow!"
"HE LEFT YOU WITH EVERYTHING!"
"Shut your mouth! You know anything can happen before you officially turned eighteen."
Aunt Caroline hastily ended the conversation with those powerful words as though it was meant to be some sort of threat.
After saying her piece, Aunt Caroline left the room which left Syra in the living room again, all by herself
Alone...
Meanwhile, Syra felt another round of headache on top of her heavy heart upon seeing the heap of letters that she was tasked to address for that night.
Others might find it as a piece of cake, but not her. With her dyslexia, anything that involved letters would really be a tough task.
Her stepfamily knew nothing about her condition.
Maybe part of it was because Syra was good at hiding it, to the point that they just simply took her as an idiot who had a very low reading capacity.
Or maybe they simply did not care to begin with.
WHATEVER!
"HAAAAYYYY... Well then, I guess this would just be another long night again, just like the others.
She said as she started to work on the things that needed to be done.
Syra was already used to pulling all-nighters.
In fact, it was not new to her.
Since all she had to do was to try her best to address each of the cards, she started from there.
Besides, that was the one that needed her careful attention and effort the most so it was indeed better to work that out first
After all, the rest of the chores was child play for her anyway and she could finish them in no time.
Syra did not give that much thought to what her Aunt Caroline had told her before she left. Her stepmother was always like that anyway.
She had a knack on making almost everything into a melodrama of her own and would always saw to it to leave the scene with a dramatic exit.
"Hmm.. what could be these letters for??? WAIT! Are they secretly planning to throw a surprise party tomorrow for my birthday???"
Syra smiled upon that thought but she quickly contradicted it.
"No! NO! NO... That's impossible... They can't be as thoughtful as that. Well, at least not to me. I have known them for years already...TSSS.."
And with that, Syra got back to work and busied herself again; trying her best to get the right address for each card by manually comparing how the text on her list and on the cards themselves looked like.
Of course, she also made sure that the stamps were not pasted upside down.
"Here, make sure to have this snack while you work on that."
As she was preoccupied with what she was doing, Syra failed to notice that Aunt Caroline came back to check on her. It was only when she heard the other party's voice did she finally noticed her presence.
Aunt Caroline left right after as she put a bowl of cookies as well as a glass of warm milk at the table beside Syra.
"Thanks."
Syra mumbled under her breath although deep inside her, she was already flabbergasted.
She felt like dreaming.
WAIT...
Was it indeed a dream???
Syra tried pinching herself and the pain that assaulted her afterward told her that everything that was happening right before her was indeed part of reality.
"What was with Aunt Caroline today? One moment, she was acting like her usual annoying self then a minute later she was being kind like that???! Was that some new kind of drunken stupor???"
Syra wondered to herself as she took a bite off her cookie.