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The Cinderella Support Group, by Isabelle Friedman

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The Cinderella Support Group Cindy was annoyed at her sister yet again. They had fought about attending a support group to help Cindy talk through her issues. Sophia told her that she needed someone else to talk to besides her, and then she said that she was leaving again. Not forever. But there was someone she said she had to help, so she and her familiar, Spooks the cat, left that morning. Cindy, of course, was a little bit jealous that her sister had turned out to be a witch, but she knew there was more to the story of why she was a witch than what Sophia was letting on. Now, Cindy sat in a hard plastic chair, holding crappy coffee in a paper cup and watching the clock tick by. The therapist in charge introduced this group as “The Cinderella Support Group”, which was stupid, Cindy thought, because it was really just a group for people to deal with their family trauma. Cindy struggled to realize that her family trauma was much more terrible than the average family quarrels and was offended that the group was named after a silly fairytale. Cindy rolled her eyes as their third meeting progressed, and a woman named Kajong was wrapping up her story about her terrible stepmom and stepsisters. “…so anyway, I pickled her meat and sent it my stepmom.” Kajong suddenly squealed and clapped her hands together in delight, bringing Cindy’s attention back to the meeting. “And the best part is, she ate it! Her own daughter,” she elaborated with a shake of her head, a smile plastered on her face. Cindy never understood the need for revenge, but Cindy also had a sister who enacted all of her revenge for her. There were many parts of Cindy’s own story that remained unknown to her, so when she shook her head at the classless actions of Kajong’s revenge, she also never knew a world where her abusers got off easy. The therapist had just finished her response to Kajong’s story and gave her a few breathing exercises to control her anger when she spotted Cindy shaking her head. “Cindy, would you like to share your experience with the group now? I know we haven’t gotten to you yet.” Cindy was momentarily blindsided even though she knew the whole point of coming was to “talk through her feelings”, as Sophia had put it. So far, they had heard from a girl whose sisters ate their own mother, a girl whose mother had been turned into a cow and then killed, and a girl who had her pet fish killed because she loved it so much. “Uh…sure, yeah, I can go. I guess, I had some bad experiences with my family, too, especially my father, and for a time, I thought my sister betrayed me when she was really just protecting me by… but anyway we’re really close now,” Cindy finished,


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