Rosewood Institute

Mama?

Birch's POV

Papa and I were walking down the stairs after my bath and we were planning on watching what they call a movie. I've never seen one, but it sounds odd but also interesting.

I was taken out of my little space after my bath was done, I just didn't want to be in headspace anymore. Lately it's been giving me headaches coming in and out of headspace so quickly, maybe I'll end up asking Mr. Silas what he thought that meant later on.

We could hear voices by the front door, more like yelling.

"You can't take him! His father signed away his rights!" Paisley yelled at a woman standing by the door.

She looked like she had money; fancy clothes, well styled hair, and stood with a man who I could only describe as scary. Really tall and muscular, on the outside he looked well put together but when he looked at me, I could only describe the look he gave me being disgust mixed with pity.

As Arundelle and I stood on front of them, the lady looked at me in what could only be described as an overly fake smile and said, "Birch, my darling boy! You've gotten so big since I last saw you as a babe! How are you faring?"

She confused me, who was she and why did she want me? It wasn't too hard to figure out they were fighting over me. I may be a little, but I'm not an idiot.

"Who are you, ma'am?" Arundelle asked from behind me, he knew I didn't like talking to strangers and these people were definitely strange....

"Oh silly me!" She said with an overly exaggerated laugh and said, "I'm your birth mother and this is your stepfather. You'll be coming home with us dear, and don't worry about your classification. Bertrand here has a nephew who lives with us on our villa in France. I know he'd be delighted to be your daddy!"

My hands started to shake uncontrollably as I looked into the eyes of the woman who claims to be my mother.

The person who knowingly abandoned me and my twin sister to an abusive alcoholic man who had no business in being a father.

No.

She doesn't care for me, she just wants to control me.

I'm done being controlled, I lived a lifetime of hell in my fathers house. The house of my nightmares, the house that broke almost every single little part of me.

I won't go back to that, I can't go back to that darkness again, it would kill everything that is left in me.

And now I'm done being the weak one, the one who cowers and bends to everyone's whims and wishes without a single thought of myself.

And with that thought I ran out of the room, determined to prove that she has no legal rights to me anymore.

I fumbled with the floorboard under my bed, getting splinters underneath my fingertips. I didn't care about the pain right now, all I knew was I needed the in-case-of-apocalyptic-emergency box that Iris and I made just for a situation like this.

Iris always knew our mother would come back, and she tried to prepare me for the inevitability that she may not be a good person anymore or she might not have mine or hers best interests in heart.

So Iris made a box of different documents our father had, that we had to be very sneaky in stealing, and made our box.

It has both of our birth certificates and social security cards, Iris' death certificate, the love notes we found our mother had written to our father, some little personal items like a piece of Iris' hair wrapped in ribbon and what we were told was our grandmother's thimble. It was more of a keepsake box, but Iris said it had to have a funny name to truly stick in our minds.

Plus it's more fun that way.

But the most important thing is in a white envelope, a series of papers our father made our mother sign after they apparently had a big blowout fight over our custody, on our father wanting our mother to take us and leave.

I always dreamed about having a loving mother who cared for us and wanted to bake cookies and read me stories at night. A loving father who'd teach me how to catch a baseball or help me fight all my bullies.

But it didn't end up happening that way.

I sighed as I picked up the box and ran down the stairs with it. I know I have the evidence to support the fact that she signed the rights of me and Iris away when we were babies.

She truly thought I'd be an idiot, a forever baby that she could manipulate and do with what she wanted. I'm not weak, I may be a baby but only for my daddies, not some random guy in France. He's probably not even gay!

"You can't prove anything! He's mine! And he's coming home with me!" She said with an angry red face. Good god, how are we related? I mean yeah our hairs the same color but her eyes are a dark brown, nothing close to my strange violet hues.

Mr. Silas looked at her in disapproval and irritation. I could tell that Hades was about to explode from across the room and by the twitching of Xavier's hand, he didn't look much better either.

I gave Mr. Silas the papers and he looked at her with a predatory smirk.

"I can't prove anything? Well look here, you signed him and his twin sister away when they were babies. Never come near him or my property again, or I'll call the authorities. Now get the fuck out of my house!" Mr. Silas started talking calmly but he ended up yelling in the end. I didn't mind, she seemed like a terrible person anyways.

He shoved the papers towards my mother and said in a no nonsense tone, "Here's your evidence. You really thought Birch was an idiot! Let me tell you, he's not! That boy deserves the world, especially after what your ex put him through. How could you do that to a child, your child?!"

She looked down at the papers and sighed as she handed them back to Mr. Silas and said in a sad voice with a painful undertone, "I met Birch's father, William, when I was 15 and had just been classified as a pet. I didn't.... I wasn't interested in being his pet. I heard rumors from one of my friends at school about how he abused his last pet and wanted nothing to do with him. But... he wouldn't back down."

At this point we were all in shock, I sniffled and tried to keep the tears at bay as Malakai held my shaking hands, trying to give me some comfort.

"He was at least 20 years older than me at the time, and I didn't know how to get away from him. I was young and stupid and thought I knew everything about the world. Let me tell you, I didn't. And I regret even looking at him twice seeing what he did to my babies." She said as she cried, and looked at me with so much regret and pain.

It was in that moment that I realized that she wasn't a terrible person. She was just projecting, she wanted to seem big and tough and important. When in reality, she was a woman who had so much of her life stolen from her. And now she just wanted a small piece of it back.

I inhaled and tried to push down all of my anxieties and fears as I said, "I can't s-say I f-for-give y-you, bu-but I'll see y-you again s-soon,o-ok-ay-y?"

She looked at me with a mix of shock and sympathy and hugged me tight as I stood there like a statue until I eventually melted into her comforting embrace.

I know that we're not completely okay with everything that happened to us in our lives, but I had hope that we could work through it together and be something resembling family.

It may not happen anytime soon, but I know that our future is much brighter than our past, and that gives me hope.