my PICTURE story contest submission!

Hi. My name's Janet.....I'm not really sure how to introduce myself. I'm smart, but to say so would be kind of conceited. I'm not very pretty according to my mom but I am according to my sister. She's my teddy bear. She buries me in the warmth of her praise and compliments whenever I raise that knife to my wrist. It's all my mothers fault you know, not even raising her eyes from the beauty magazines as she spits out hateful words as I leave for school. "You shouldn't wear tight shirts like that, dear, they show all your fat to the world. Now, you don't want that do you?" or "Could you PLEASE try and care about your appearance, you're embarrassing me." or "You should lose about 20 pounds, maybe then you'll get some friends." Sounds like a real nice person to live on the other side of your wall, huh? But then, behind my other wall is my sister, Sophie. She isn't affected by the hateful words that our mother flings at her. "How DARE you spill juice on the couch, you know I love that couch more than you!" or, "Don't eat so much, you're already on the heavy side, Sophie." But it just bounces right off her and her smile still resides on her face, just a bright as ever. But I can't bounce back as well. Every word is another night I cry myself to sleep, or sit through dinner with my food untouched and my stomach grumbling, or another cut I slice into my wrist. Without my sister, I couldn't deal. She's the one who comes in and snuggles with me when she hears me crying, who tells me how beautiful I am, and who hides the knife. She's my teddy bear. But we're both growing up. I'm almost old enough to move away, 17. And trust me, as soon as I finish school I'm gonna get out. And Sophie's starting middle school. And she's starting to listen. For the first time, her smile falters whenever our mom tells her how fat she is. And then she puts her fork down. Her sobs echo in the halls. Her arms are covered in bracelets. But I know what's under those bracelets because she learned these tricks fro me. Yesterday I came home from school and found Sophie in the bathroom sitting on the floor. There were scraps of hair around her. She'd tried to cut her hair shorter because our mother had said, "Why is your hair SO long, it looks awful! Are you trying to cover your knobbly witch nose? Hmmph, I don't blame you." She now sat on the floor, her beautiful hair in clumps on the ground and her eyes brimming with tears. Thanks mom. You've ripped up my teddy bear. How can I ever leave now? I can't just leave and never come back next year, leave my sister alone here six years. We'll both be trapped here forever. I know when you hear me cry at night, you feel guilty deep deep down in that small heart of yours and I hope you live with that guilt forever until it eats you up and causes you as much pain as you've caused us.