The stories you tell yourself.

She is five. Hoping for good news. She is with two people, waiting -- one loves her but she doesn't know it or feel it; she loves the other absolutely and can't know or feel that the love is not reciprocated. The news comes and it is not at all what she hoped for -- the baby is a boy. What this means, for her, a girl, is that she has no sister, no ally, no hope. She is utterly, totally, alone. No one will help her or save her. Or know her, for that matter. It is now all over. Her last chance.

She reacts badly. Shattered, crushed, destroyed. Her eyes are coals, bright and shot with tears, haunted, horrified. Unbelieving. It cannot be true. That the universe can be so cruel and so dead set against her. She is five.

I hate him she says, I hate him already and the aunt says (the treacherous aunt) No you don't. So. It is utterly true. No one sees her, knows her, cares. She is on her own now and now she decides -- she doesn't know she decides, she's just five, but she decides nonetheless -- well, if they all want to hurt me, if there is no one in the universe to love me, I will hurt myself ten times as much. I will exceed their hurt, I will excel past where they would go, I'll show them. She's five. It's five year old logic.