Chapter Text
Chloe Annamarie Katlyn Elizabeth Valentine was born on February 14, 2004. Her mother had gone into labor in the middle of the night, and she was born at 2:14 in the afternoon in Room 214. It was a day of parallels, and of dreams come true. Her parents had been trying for a child for nearly 4 years, and here she was, in all of her newborn glory. It was snowing outside of the small New York hospital as her mother held her lovingly. Her father was God knows where, and so they were alone. Her and her mother against the world.
Her father came in the next day at 9 am sharp while her mother was still sleeping. He held her for a moment, wrote her name on the birth certificate, signed the certificate, and left for some work function, or maybe to get something done in his business. Her mother woke up around noon and signed the birth certificate as well. And although she was named Chloe, her father always called her Anna, while her mother called her Marie. A small sign of the discord in the family, but a sign nonetheless. As her mother signed the birth certificate, they became a family on paper. But were they one in real life?
Their New York penthouse felt empty on the day Chloe and her mother were allowed to leave the hospital. It was massive, and they were so… not. Her father wasn’t there, and the furniture felt like a cover, a facade. It hid the problems, the fighting. The errors in what was, on paper, a picture-perfect family. Chloe was silent as her mother put her in her crib. She had fallen asleep on the drive home and had stayed that way on her journey up to the apartment. But the second her mother let her go, she began to wail. So her mother stayed until they both were fast asleep in one of the chairs.
Chloe began to talk early, around 4 months. It shocked everyone around her. Her first word was mama, which did not shock everyone around her. She began to crawl at 7 months and walk on her knees at 8. She could say around 20 words at this point, although her favorite words were “What’s that?” She asked this about toasters, the sky, flowers that grew in her mother’s garden, and anything she could set her eyes on. She asked about everything, but once you told her, she never forgot. She took her first steps on her first birthday. By 18 months, she could speak in full sentences. She was a precocious child, but nobody around her noticed. They were too busy caught up in the politics of marriage and New York high society.
Years passed, and Chloe learned that she loved to read. But when reading wasn’t enough to block out the noise, Chloe began to listen. To her father’s silence. To the fights her parents would have about secretaries and adultery. She didn’t know what the word “slut” meant, but it didn’t sound good. Her mother would often come into her bedroom at night with puffy eyes. As a 4 year old whose only love in life was her mother, this was Chloe’s greatest concern. But her mother always insisted she was fine, and her father was never there for her to ask.
When Chloe was 5, she started kindergarten. There were so many kids, and Chloe loved having people her own age around every day, instead of just at the weekly country club visits. There were 20 kids in her class, and Chloe made it a point to learn all of their names. She quickly became friends with a girl named Becca, who seemed really nice to Chloe. She let her sit next to her at lunch, called her clothes shabby (which sounded pretty, so Chloe assumed that’s what it meant), and gave Chloe her markers back when she took them without asking. When people took from Chloe, they never gave back, and so she was grateful.
Slowly, Becca became Chloe’s favorite person on the planet. She was everything Chloe wanted in a friend. Nobody else liked her, but Chloe would never understand why. Except for the occasional snide remark, she was very kind. That is until she made fun of all the other kids in their class and expected Chloe to join in. When she refused, Becca told her she didn’t want to hang out with a slut like her anyways. There it was again, echoing in her mind like a beacon. Slut, slut, slut.
When Chloe was six, she walked in on her dad kissing his secretary. They were tangled up in the bed he slept in with her mother. When she asked what he was doing, he handed her a dollar and told her not to tell her mother, because it would hurt her feelings. She remembered all the times he had told her mom that his relationship with the secretary was strictly professional. And she realized he had lied. She took the dollar and flushed it down the toilet. The next day, she told her mother what she had seen.
Suddenly, there was talk of divorce. Her mother was furious about the secretary, and Chloe had resolved to never tell her about the many women that had come after. New secretaries, friends of her mother, his boss. Chloe seemed to have a talent for walking in on her father, tangled up with some new girl in the big white bed her parents slept in together. She knew the secretary had almost pushed her mother to get a divorce, and she wanted her parents to stay together, so she kept silent. But no matter what she did or didn’t say, her mother knew. And this shattered Chloe’s heart.
When Chloe was seven, they moved to New Jersey. A new school, new friends, and a brand new house, bigger than their penthouse. Chloe had a bedroom, a playroom, and a learning room. Although she was rich in rooms, she was not as rich in love. Her father was never home. She and her mother both knew it was adultery at this point, but if they didn’t talk about it, it wasn’t happening. At school, she met a girl named Brooke Lohst. She was nice, pretty, and liked yellow. They almost instantly became best friends.
Brooke was everything Becca hadn’t been, and so much more. She asked Chloe if she could sit by her at lunch, and of course Chloe always said yes. She complimented her on her clothes, and Chloe tried to compliment her right back, although she wasn’t always the best at it. It was like the words were right there in her head, but if she wanted to say it, her dad’s voice would echo in her head. Don’t show weakness, Chloe, or they will eat you alive. So she sometimes didn’t compliment Brooke. But she really, really wanted to. And of course, Brooke never took her markers without asking. She asked. Nobody else ever had.
When Chloe was eight, she got a pet cat. She had found him in a dumpster on her way home from school, and had immediately brought him to the vet across the street. The vet gave him his shots and called her mother. After much pleading, her mother agreed to keep him. She named him Snuffles, and they slept together every night. Snuffles was there amongst the almost constant fighting whenever her father deigned to come home, and amongst the silence when her father wasn’t there. Brooke was there nearly every Friday, but on the other nights, there was Snuffles, a rare constant in her ever changing life.
But Snuffles was a stray. And when her father found out there was a stray cat in his elegant New Jersey suburb house, he drowned Snuffles in a bucket. And he made Chloe watch. Whenever she closed her eyes, the scene would play behind her eyelids, harsh and bitter with her feelings of rage and sadness. This is the real world, Chloe. Eat or be eaten. That’s what her father had said as he held the thrashing cat underwater, his arms littered with scratches. So she decided. She was the predator, because she had to be. How else would she protect the people she cared about?
When Chloe was nine, a boy named Jake Dillinger moved in at the end of her street. His parents were rich, country club people just like hers were, and they were often seen around each other at country club events. Mostly because there were never any other children there, but also because they sort of liked hanging out with each other. Jake was funny, and Chloe loved to laugh. But their parents were less than cordial to each other, so they would pretend to be the same way. Family friends, they would call each other. Nothing more.
That summer she learned something very important about Jake. Jake’s dad was rich, just like Chloe’s, but he spent most of the time at home. He worked from an office he had established in their house. Jake always complained about how his dad was always there and would never leave him alone. Chloe wished her dad would give her more than a few minutes of his time, but Jake just took his father for granted. But if he knew Chloe’s dad was never around, he’d feel bad for her, and Chloe hated pity. So she smiled and agreed with him.
When Chloe was ten, her father didn’t come home on her birthday. Before, he never missed it, even if he was gone the other 364 days of the year. But on her tenth birthday, he didn’t come home. Her mother was far too drunk to care, and so Chloe walked a mile to the local bakery and bought herself a cupcake. There were no candles, and yet she had infinite wishes. Two months later, a bike accident led to a visit to the emergency room. She had to call the ambulance herself on a payphone, because she was five miles from home and nobody there would have picked up anyways. She refused to tell the doctors her dad or mom’s phone number, and insisted she could call them herself. They must have been pretty desperate, because they agreed to let her call her father.
He showed up three hours after she called him because he had to get out of his meeting first. He sweet talked the doctors into thinking she had been left with an incompetent babysitter, but as soon as they drew the curtain around her, he began to yell. About how much of a nuisance she was, about how he was in the middle of a very important meeting, and how her selfish injury had gotten in the way. His fury only rose when they insisted she stayed for more tests, as she seemed to have some sort of issue with her blood clotting. They were right, and she left that day with a Von Willebrand diagnosis. Her monthly blood transfusions were now a nuisance as well. Everything about her: nuisance, nuisance, nuisance.
When Chloe was eleven, she started middle school. Gone were the colorful cotton shorts, the graphic t shirts, and the patterned leggings. On was the makeup, the jean jackets, the fashion sweaters, and the short skirts. Chloe was popular, and everyone knew it. She was untouchable, and she made sure Brooke was too. Her circle was elite, the best of the best. Girls would have sold their soul to be friends with her. She never had a boyfriend, but nobody cared about that. Since her parents loved to throw money at their problems, she had the best clothes, the best pens, the best of everything. Except for the best family.
Her father came home once every three months, smelling like perfume that wasn’t her mothers. He would promise to be home more, only to leave the next morning for a “business trip”. She learned to forge her mothers signature because her mother was too drunk to sign anything, or care for her daughter at all. She never had friends over, because she was worried they would report her parents to CPS. Because as bad as her family life was, you only get one family. Ahd Chloe wasn’t ready to let hers go.
When Chloe was twelve, tragedy struck. And her life changed forever.