What Makes and Breaks a Bond.

It was a dark and stormy night. Lightning occasionally lit up my room, illuminating the desk with clothes and pens haphazardly tossed across it and the clothes carpet on my floor. I wasn't exactly the cleanest person, certainly not compared to my neat freak of a sister, Allison. I honestly couldn't stand her nitpicking whenever she came into my room.

"How can you live in here?" She would ask.

"With a hazmat suit and a blind eye." I would always shoot back.

Allison was practically perfect in every way. Her report card was always without flaws, her room gave new meaning to the word clean, and even her face was without blemish. She was a freak of nature and my mother's pride and joy.

My mother is a compulsive fixer; she would find something wrong with you and couldn't help but nag you until you eventually fixed it, or she would just fix it herself. It was always so suffocating being in the same house as her and even more so when we were in the same room. I still can't imagine how she and Dad actually make their marriage work.

Dad is kind of like me. He is messy and is very creative. He loves his job as a chef and he even taught me how to play guitar. He jokes about how a house should be for free expression, not good impressions, something he and my mom disagreed about constantly. Just as Allison was Mom's favorite, my younger brother, Jake was dad's favorite.

Jake is a ball of energy and optimism that just can't sit still. He is so helpful and obedient it's almost revolting. I have yet to see him get yelled at by either of our parents. The most in trouble he has ever been in is when Mom raised her voice at him to wash his hands before dinner. Not to mention the fact that he took after Dad's love of cooking.

It was infuriating living with these perfect people, and then there is me. I'm a mess compared to all my siblings. I make a mess, I'm loud and obnoxious or quiet and awkward, my grades are less than stellar and not once have I been perfect in my life. I was the toothpaste filling in a prank Oreo; sandwiched between the. two best parts of the family.

On that fateful stormy day, Mom, who was obsessed with having the perfect family, came knocking on my door. I was listening to music with my headphones in and only heard her knock the third time.

"Come in!" I called out. If I had realized what she was planning to do, I might have pretended that I was asleep and hadn't heard her.

"Rebecca, come downstairs, we're gonna be doing some family bonding." She smiled.

Behind her were Allison and Jake smiling like the perfect children they were.

"Come on it will be fun," Allison beckoned.

I groaned and looked away. I was quite comfortable on my bed and I didn't particularly want to feel inadequate at the moment.

Mom frowned and set her jaw, her dictator face. I groaned again, saying no wasn't an option.

I reluctantly got up and trudged down the stairs to join my family in the living room. One look around the room and I groaned again. Monopoly, Uno, Clue, Life, Charades, and Pictionary were all pulled out and stacked neatly on our coffee table.

"Family game night, guys!" Mom cheered. "Let's have some fun bonding time."

Monopoly was first, and I didn't know exactly what I was expecting, but my parents yelling at me for not playing the banker right wasn't it. Allison was yelling at Jake for not giving him the right amount of money and Dad was trying to diffuse that situation that then turned on me when I realized I gave Jake the wrong amount of fifties. I was stuck in jail watching the chaos unfurl until someone just threw the game away.

Mom made us all hold hands and apologize to each other for our unsportsmanlike fighting. I made a solemn vow to never buy Monopoly for my family when I grow up.

Next was Clue and it would have been fun if it wasn't for Allison having insane superhuman guessing skills. She guessed the killer correctly after only three rounds! We played two more times until we eventually gave up and crowned Allison the Clue Queen.

We played charades, but my heart wasn't in it so I didn't make any guesses which meant that I never got to play. Life wasn't too terrible. I had a pretty decent ending score but nothing could beat Jake's multimillionaire status. Uno ended up pretty similar to Monopoly and landed on my do not buy list.

By the time we had finished, I was fed up with family bonding time. I couldn't wait for Mom to let us all go back to our normal lives and eventually forget that this night had happened.

Mom pulled us all close and hugged us.

"Thank you guys for coming and playing with us. I hope you guys will understand how important it is that we all have close bonds as a family," She gushed. "You all can head back to your rooms if you'd like, except you Rebecca."

I froze when she said my name.

"Can we talk, sweetheart?"

I rolled my eyes and sat down while everyone else cleared the room.

'Why weren't you participating, sweetie?" Dad asked.

"I was participating, I got yelled at during Monopoly and Uno. Pretty sure that means I participated."

"What about charades and Life?" Mom accused.

I looked away, why did it matter if I didn't really participate during those games. I didn't want to come down in the first place.

"Rebecca, this is important. You don't want to have your siblings grow up to hate you because you were never putting forth the time to actually get to know them right?"

I shrugged.

Dad frowned, "Are you going alright, sweetie?"

I rolled my eyes, "I'm fine, Dad. I just didn't feel like coming down."

"We love you, Rebecca, and we want to know what's bothering you." Mom pressed.

"You want to know what's bothering me? How about the fact that I suck at all of these games, how about the fact that I'm not going to be as perfect as Jake or Allison, how about the fact that there isn't enough love for all of my siblings and me. You guys are two people and you only can love one person in this world and you guys have chosen your favorites. I'm just the random housemate that shares your DNA!" I exploded.

"I hate coming down here and bonding with the family because it's a painful reminder of how imperfect, inadequate and unloved I really am. You say you love me yet I am the only child you left behind. I'm the only one you ever yell at and I'm the one you constantly want to fix all the time. You say I'm lazy and messy and broken because I'm not like perfect Allison or wonderful Jake. I'm just Rebecca the screw-up. The black stain on our family portraits and you know it just as well as I do."

My parents were stunned and I realized that I had actually said that all out loud. I tried to regain my composure and turned and walked away.

Halfway up the stairs, I realized that my eyes were stinging and tears were streaming down my face. That was when I felt my sister's arms wrap around me. She pulled me into the tightest hug and pressed me close to her chest. Her own tears mixed with mine. Jake was there too, squeezing me tightly. Soon My entire family was wrapping me in a giant group hug.

"that's not even the least bit true," Allison said. "We love you, Becca, so much. You're amazing and funny and you help me all the time. Whenever I'm feeling stressed out you're always there with a funny joke. I love you so much. I'm so sorry you feel this way."

"It's true, you're so much fun to hang out with and you always make us laugh," Jae nodded.

"Your intelligent and wonderful, Becca, you add so much to this family and I wouldn't know what I would do if you weren't here." Mom cried.

"We truly love you, sweetheart. You're our daughter, our family and that means that we will always love you." Dad soothed.

By this point, I was sobbing so hard my stomach pounded against my throat and it hurt to breathe. All the pain I was feeling would never fully go away, but their love washed away the heavy, angry, pain that I carried around everywhere I went. I wasn't completely cured of any and all pain, but it was enough to feel happy with myself for the first time in years.

I love my family, even if I fell like the toothpaste in a prank Oreo. I know that I'm loved and that is enough.