The Wrong Daughter

by Dandy Smith

married people have roots, they are one tree, not two. They are stationary which makes them strong.

Two girls break away to cartwheel across the sand. They shriek and giggle when one of them tumbles and lands on her back. I don’t think I was ever that carefree. I never flirtatiously stole a boy’s hat and put it on just so he would chase me. Never snuck out. Never stole vodka from my parents’ house and passed it back and forth with a friend. My mother’s anxiety and my father’s austerity anchored me to the house.

‘Sometimes, the only person worth satisfying is yourself. It’s your life, you’ve got to live it for you.’

I don’t think she can ever truly appreciate how lucky she is to have a parent who encourages her to pick whatever path she wants in life and happily holds her hand as she walks down it, no matter whether it leads to a dead end or a pot of gold.

‘Don’t be afraid to play the main character in your own life. Don’t be a person that things just happen to because it’s easier than being a person who makes things happen.’

‘You can love something so much that you hold onto it too tightly and crush it to death.’

Oscar and I snuffed out each other’s dreams whilst clinging to one another with desperate, grasping fingers.