identity horror stream of consciousness toxic family nightmaresA scream tears through my throat. Sweat drenches my sheets. The same nightmare as always.I sit in a car; she's in the driver's seat. She takes her eyes off the road for a second. One second. We are hit, we spin, we flip, we crash into an embankment. Snow falls through the broken window. Blood soaks my clothesher blood, not mine. I can't breathe, I can't breathe. When I turn to look at her, two gaping sockets stare back at me, and I can't breathe to scream.She appears in my doorway, clutching her tattered robe around her curvy frame and pursing her lips. She asks me what's wrong; I wipe my brow and give her a smile. Nothing. I'm fine. She gives me that look that says I'm a disappointment, no matter how many times she says she wants a daughter like me, and suggests sleeping pills. She knows I can't stand medication, not after I can'twon'ttake sleeping pills. I tell her not to worry, to just go back to bed.She leaves without another word and I lie in bed, staring at the whorls in the ceiling, trying not to see the crimson stain on her chest from where the steering wheel crushed her.̃The Daughter She Wanted is a deep dive into the frail and unraveling thought stream of a high school girl living with her manipulative foster mother, navigating the world through the dissociative lenses of her chronic depression, undiagnosed autism,and cptsd

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