I Was Their Broken Doll

Ever since my long-lost sister Summer was found and brought home, I became the black sheep of the family.

It all started when she claimed the diet plan I gave her made her gain a single pound, costing her the lead dancer role.

Mom and Dad ripped up my invitation to the Black Swan Dance Company without a second thought.

My brother, Jake, started spiking my milk with hormones every single day.

After I ballooned by what felt like a hundred pounds, a video of me struggling to even use the bathroom went viral.

Mortified, my family shipped me off to a "good girls" weight loss camp to learn some manners.

What followed was pure torture.

I broke my ribs five times, shattered my leg bones three times, and had my head shaved twice. My body was a roadmap of scars.

Finally, they'd sculpted me into their idea of a "good girl."

The day Jake came to pick me up, I knelt on the ground, dead inside, and mumbled, "Number 2145 messed up. Please forgive me."

My clothes from a year ago hung off me, practically swallowing me whole.

I stumbled out of those iron gates, completely dazed.

The guy leaning against the Rolls-Royce straightened up, his eyes scanning me with undisguised disgust.

"Daisy, are you pulling some kind of stunt?" he sneered. "The family's been bankrolling this place every quarter. You're not exactly starving. What's with the rags? Trying to make us look bad?"

Daisy? The name felt like a ghost from a life I'd almost forgotten.

I raised my head, but the sun was a blinding knife in my eyes. I dropped to my knees, my hands shaking uncontrollably.

"I'm not Daisy. I don't deserve a name. I shouldn't look people in the eye. Please, no more bright lights. I'm sorry. 2145 won't do it again. I messed up…"

On my first day at that hellhole, the instructors had slapped me senseless. The first lesson was to forget my name. I wasn't worthy of being Daisy Miller, the daughter of the Millers. I was only Number 2145. And Number 2145 was the lowest of the low, forced to stare at the ground, never allowed to meet anyone's gaze.

At first, I fought back. That just earned me a session strapped to a chair, with my eyelids propped open by toothpicks as they blasted me with a laser. I couldn't last more than a few seconds. After my corneas burned over and over, I finally accepted my new name. The fear of bright light was now a muscle memory.

A jolt of pain shot through my shoulder as the guy yanked his foot back. "Daisy, a whole year, and you still haven't learned? More acting? As if the family would cut you off here. You went on a diet but didn't learn any manners, and now you're acting crazy?!"