Rose's Descent

Introduction

Introduction

Beginnings

From the moment I took my first breath, I’ve been unwanted. A discarded thing that no one took pity on. My mother didn’t love me, and my father knew nothing of me. At least, that’s what I tell myself. I could be wrong. Maybe he does know of me, and it has been his actions that have created my miserable existence of a life. It’s possible that my mother had no choice. Perhaps she would have gladly taken me into her arms, fed me from her breast, given me the life-giving sustenance due all newborns. But I doubt it. That type of life just isn’t in the cards for me.

Back then, I was kept behind a glass window, and somehow, even in my state of newness, I understood my circumstances. From an early age, I could remember people commenting on my uncanny ability to be self-aware. Even now, I can easily recall things, as well as read people. Maybe it’s my gaze. Too direct. I’m blunt in most things, jagged in others. I never lie. I usually see no reason to. So, on the day of my adoption, I remember looking the woman in the face and giving her real facts.

“No one here wants me, and I suspect neither do you. So, why go through with this adoption?” I ask the woman whose name I still hadn’t been given. She is tall and pasty with black hair and confused eyes. I say confused because one is brown and the other is blue. But her aim is true. I am her target.

To this day, I still don’t understand why.

“My daughter seeks a companion, and what better confidante than a sister?”

“You are to be my mother then?” I say bluntly.

The woman nods her head, and I don’t miss the slight frown in her brows. She doesn’t want me. But I’m her only choice. I must be, why else would she choose me?

“Yes, but you don’t have to call me Mother if you don’t want to. You can call me Ms. White.”

I test out the words. “Ms. White?”

“Yes, that’s right.” She smiles but it doesn’t reach her eyes.

It never reaches her eyes. And it never will, not when it comes to me.

The day I left with Ms. White is a day I’ll never forget. It’s also the day I met my adoptive sister, Snow White.