CINDY'S POV
I woke up to the sound of an automobile engine going off the road. I blinked, trying to decipher where I was, and realized I was still in the storage room.
Even though my stomach growled loudly because I hadn't eaten, I mustered all my energy to pound my fist on the door and screamed, "Let me out!"
Were they trying to kill me?
I stopped when I heard footsteps near the room. The small cat-door at the bottom of the door opened, and a tray containing a plate of leftover food and brownish water was dropped inside.
"Eat up! Thank us for still letting you live," Aunt Jezel's voice said.
"Auntie, please, open the door. I won't ever rebel against you again."
But she just laughed and walked away.
I don't know how many days passed while I was imprisoned in the storage room. It felt like forever. I hadn't bathed or seen the sun. They really treated me like an animal.
One day, I was lying on the makeshift bed I'd made when the cat-door on the lower part of the main door opened. The person who left my food spoke. It was Henry.
I quickly scrambled to my feet and peeked through the cat-door to plead with Henry to let me out.
"I can't possibly do it."
"Why?" I asked, my eyes streaked with tears. I was surprised my eyes weren't dry from crying all the time.
"You were a bad girl, Cindy. It's right for you to be punished like this."
"I thought you loved me."
He laughed. "You think so? Let me tell you the truth, Cindy. It wasn't you I loved. It was Jenny. Don't be so delusional."
Suddenly, Jenny appeared beside him, caressing her small baby bump. She smirked as she looked at me.
"Pathetic. He was just using you to be close to me. Who would want to be with an abandoned daughter like you?"
No matter how many insults they threw at me, I was still affected. It hurt so much that I'd served them, yet I wasn't worthy of their acceptance as part of their family.
When Henry left to go home, Jenny stayed in front of the storage room. She threw insults at me, saying I should be dead.
I was okay with their insults, really, but when she mentioned my father and how I'd killed my mother during childbirth, I snapped.
"Your family is evil. You should all be dead, instead," I said, and that made her cry.
Her mother and sister came to her and were shocked when Jenny told them what I'd said.
Aunt Jezel was furious. For the first time since she'd locked me up, she opened the door and stormed toward me. She grabbed my hair and dragged me outside.
I was almost blinded when the light hit my eyes; I hadn't seen sunlight for days. She dragged me to the stables. The horses neighed as Aunt Jezel pushed me into a pile of horse manure. My face was covered in it, and I could even taste it. I wanted to cry, but I controlled myself.
"That's what you deserve for being ungrateful to us. You want to be free, right? Well, then, go. No one would accept you, anyway. You'll come back here again, and you'll be cleaning horse shit again."
That night, after cleaning myself, I decided to follow my plan to leave the house for good. Even though my body ached from Aunt Jezel and her daughters' slaps and kicks, I packed my clothes and left my father's house, poisoned by her.
I walked past Henry's house and cried. Afterward, I wiped my tears and straightened my posture. I picked up the love letters he'd sent me before from my bag and threw them in their mailbox, along with a new letter for him that said: I loved you, but you treated me like an animal. Now, you will all regret what you did to me.
