In the living room of a big yet small house, the air was tense around everyone seated on the couch. One person stood not far away from the elderly couple, and a young lady, who sat on another couch, looked nervous. Suddenly, a sound of a slap could be heard as one of the elderly couple stood up. Mr. Lewis slapped his daughter.
"Father, yo-," Julie said, her hand holding her cheek, which had been slapped, as she looked at him with disbelief.
"Yes, I slapped you," Lewis, Julie's father, said, looking at her with anger in his eyes. "Can you tell me you didn't deserve this slap, huh?"
"It's seriously not me," Julie said, tears streaming down her face. "I'm not the one in the picture. It's not me, Father, Mom, believe me, it's seriously not me."
"Rachel, tell them it's not me," Julie said, holding her elder sister's hand, pleading with her to tell their parents the truth. "You know I couldn't really do such a thing. Please tell them, Rachel."
Looking at Julie, who was pleading with her to tell their parents the truth, Rachel walked forward with a sincere expression on her face as she faced their parents, ready to tell the truth to save Julie. Beside her, Julie watched with anticipation, hoping to be proven not guilty to their parents. But once Rachel opened her mouth, the world turned upside down.
"Father, Mother," Rachel said, "indeed, that's Julie in the picture. I have heard her one day in her room talking on the phone with someone, and she said, 'You want the picture, but I don't want to send you a nude one. It's not good, but if you want it, then you have to send me some of yours too in exchange.'"
"I was shocked when I heard that she was sending her nude picture to someone," Rachel said, "and I tried to talk to her so she wouldn't do so, but..." Rachel stuttered, acting as if she didn't want to tell the rest, making her mother snap at her.
"Continue, dear," her mother said, impatient to wait for Rachel to finish stuttering. "What did she say?"
Hearing her mother, Rachel's heart blossomed with happiness, knowing her plan had fallen into place. She quickly took a deep breath, as if she were saying the complete truth.
Julie turned, looking at her sister with wide eyes as Rachel told lies about her. Julie watched in disbelief, thinking, "For Allah's sake, what is she doing? This is all lies. We never talked about such a thing. Never in my life would I think of sending my picture to a guy I don't even have a boyfriend."
"Rachel, me and you—," Julie started talking, trying to defend herself against her sister's lies, but Rachel snapped at her.
"Shut up! I'm deeply sorry for you and myself. If I had an idea that you wouldn't just stay with one guy but jump from this one to the other, I would have never kept quiet," Rachel said, turning to look at her parents with a sad face. Making a sorrowful face, Rachel continued, "And she said she won't stop it because she likes seeing his body always. If he's not with her in bed, and she misses him."
Rachel ended her lies with a sob, looking at her parents, who seemed more pissed than ever. Hearing what their other daughter was saying, Cassandra and Lewis shared a look, realizing that Julie was allegedly sleeping with the guy behind their backs and out of marriage. This made her parents even angrier, and in a second, Julie was on the ground after receiving two loud slaps from her mother.
"Now, tell me, after what happened, and what your sister said, do you have anything to say about being innocent, you bitch?" Lewis said, raising his voice to the top of his lungs.
"Come here, you bitch! Come here, I'll teach you a lesson. You miss him when you're not in bed with him, huh?" Cassandra said, dragging Julie to her and starting to beat and slap her hard.
While being beaten by her mother, Julie didn't say a thing. She just kept quiet and surrendered herself to their mercy. She knew everything was messed up, but the most shocking thing was that her sister, the one she trusted the most, would do such a thing to her.
The truth was that Julie had a kind heart toward anyone who showed her kindness. She didn't associate with anyone who showed hatred toward her. Since Julie started growing up at 16, everything had been messed up. Her mother no longer understood her, nor did her father. As long as she tried to explain the situation, everything backfired, and they spoke as if they were speaking different languages. They didn't understand her at all, which, over time, made her start keeping everything to herself and forgetting that they existed.
Julie made an invisible wall to stop herself from everything she saw them doing and how they treated her. Sometimes she wondered if they truly loved her, as every parent should love their child. They always cared about her elder sister, understanding her much more than Julie. Sometimes, even if her sister did something she didn't like, and she came to her mother to tell her the problem, as long as she started talking and her mother heard that she would be talking about her sister and her wrongs or problems that happened between them, she would rise from the couch and take her leave without listening to her.
"Cassandra, stop beating her. It's all our fault for giving birth to her in the first place. We should have aborted her before she came into this world," Lewis said, walking forward and pulling Cassandra away from Julie.
Hearing what her father said, Julie was in shock, standing rooted in one place, looking at him, and another stream of tears rolled down her cheeks as she heard all that he said. She was hurt deeply; her heart ached at what he said, but it ached even more when she heard her mother, her birth mother, say, "I should have had an abortion rather than giving birth to a woman like you. Oh, what have I done to birth such a thing in my life?"
"Mom, I didn't do anything. I can swear with Almighty Allah that I didn't do anything, Mom. I didn't sleep with anyone, nor did I send my nude pictures to anyone. Please believe me," Julie said, kneeling on her knees as she begged them to believe her.
But they turned a deaf ear as she pleaded with them.
"Get out of this house and never come back. YOU ARE NO LONGER A PART OF THIS FAMILY," Lewis said, his eyes blazing with anger, as if he felt like cutting her off. He felt that she had ruined the name of his family.
Julie froze in her place, looking at her father with wide eyes filled with sadness, pain, and hurt.
"Didn't you hear him? Leave!" her mother snapped at her, which made Julie jolt from the place she knelt. She quietly turned around and exited the room alone, with no phone and nothing, just her and the clothes she wore.
Behind Lewis and Cassandra, Rachel watched Julie with a satisfied smile on her lips. Her heart was dancing with happiness, and she muttered under her breath, "Next time, snatch what belongs to me, and see hell, Julienne, my kind sister."
"Logan is mine," Rachel muttered under her breath, rolling her eyes and starting to sob again as she collapsed on the floor and started crying with crocodile tears.
Muttering under her breath, Rachel rolled her eyes and started sobbing again as she collapsed on the floor, crying with crocodile tears.
"Oh, my dear, stop crying. Your sister doesn't deserve your tears," Cassandra rushed to Rachel's side, saying after she heard her crying.
"No, Mom, you shouldn't have kicked her out. You should have just scolded her, and she would have stopped it. Dad, you shouldn't have done that," Rachel said, starting to cry uncontrollably again.
"My daughter, you are too innocent to know girls like her. She's a bitch; you don't know bitches like her. She deserves much more than what I've done to her. She'll rot on the streets and beg for food before getting a meal," Lewis said, scouting Rachel out and holding her hand, acting like a loving father. However, this gesture was only for Rachel, not Julie.
"Or maybe she'll go back to the one she whored around with to live," Cassandra said with a sneer.
On the side of the road, Julie walked like a person without a soul, her mind replaying everything that had happened between her and her parents. The most hurtful thing was her parents saying they regretted giving birth to her. In shock, Julie started walking in the middle of the road. Suddenly, a vehicle sped by, and
"sweeee shhhh" – in the blink of an eye, Julie's body lay on the middle of the road with blood splattered around her.