God is a traitor. God is a liar. God is my enemy. God does not deserve my faith, just as I do not deserve the fate he has handed me. A million derogatory terms come to mind to describe God. Names such as cheater, coward, and Angel of Impurity.

I run into the room at the hospital, the room smelling of disinfectant, plastic, and most of all… death. I wrap my arms around the one who is as good as dead – thanks to God. I know that what lies ahead is so much pain. Months, maybe years of treatment and sickness will follow for me, my family, and most of all my brother with a basically untreatable cancer. And it’s completely my fault.

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“I hate you!” I screamed at my mom. “You know, I shouldn’t even have to listen to you. You’re not my real mother!”

Immediately, I feel the impact of my impetuous words. I may be adopted, but she is more a mother to me than the woman who conceived me, carried me for nine months, bore me, and then promptly gave me up because she could not handle the responsibility. My real mother took in a newborn girl, raised her through the terrible twos, the grade-school years, and of course the materialistic, horribly rude, teenage years. My mother loves me.

Now, I know that that was when I was supposed to immediately apologize for my hurtful words, but as I said, I was a teen and I couldn’t very well say sorry like a little girl, now could I? Instead I accused her of deliberately ruining my life and trying to deprive me of all joy. Then I ran to my room and shut the door. Being the amazing woman that she is, my mom came into my room after giving me some cool down time to talk it out. She came to an empty room.

I was out with my friends at our favorite hang out, a dilapidated flower shop that had been open back in my early years. There we drank pop, don’t worry, I wasn’t into drugs or alcohol, and talked about whatever we needed to. That day, I just cried. The majority of my friends are also adopted and they explained to me that most of them went through a period of time where they hated their adopted parents and that I would get over it. Though I believed them, it still hurt.

Several days later, my mom and I were still not on speaking terms, and I went to one of the few places that I knew that I could be myself at.

My brother, Jackson lived in a two room apartment in the city. He worked a menial, seven to five shift at a grocery store nearby. I went over to talk to him since he related to mom in a different way than me, seeing as he was not adopted. Jackson had given me a key to the apartment and I was making some hot chocolate and brownies when he came home.

“Hey, Christina,” he said in his deep, husky voice. “What’s up?”

“Not much,” I replied. “Actually… a lot. Mom and I got into a big fight and I kind of told her that she wasn’t my real mom. Bad. Right?”

“Yeah,” he answered. “Bad. You know what? Even though I wasn’t adopted, mom and I still fight sometimes. You know that. So, you’re not the worst person in the world for it. Anyway, I have something that is sure to make you feel better…” then he stopped talking.

My brother clutched his jaw and rubbed long and hard. He had an intense expression of pain on his face, like a hammer was being repeatedly banged against his jaw. Something was wrong. What are we all trained to do for a problem since we are young? Call 9-1-1. So I did. An ambulance was rushed over and Jackson was brought to the hospital where the doctors ran a series of tests to find out what was wrong with this very fit, healthy, 24 year old man. As it turned out, everything was wrong.

Jackson was diagnosed with adamantinoma, a rare form of cancer with no known cause that usually starts in the shinbone or jaw and is often untreatable by radiation or chemotherapy. Jackson’s odds were grim.

Though the doctor had explained that adamantinoma has no known cause, I knew the cause. It was me. I had mistreated my mother and this was my punishment, only God was too cowardly to punish me. He punished my brother – my loving, fun brother who is not canny, but instead cares for his family. If Jackson dies, it will be my fault. Actually, no. It will be God’s.

God is a fake. God does not care. God will hurt me more than anyone else ever will.