arranged | ✎

Chapter 1

Navea. Names have such beautiful meanings— although I don't feel as beautiful. My mother named me after finding out I was a girl. She thought, that as long as I was a girl I would remain innocent and unsophisticated, Ingenue.

I was born out of wedlock in the city of Paris, France where my mother raised me by herself with no help from my uninterested father. He wanted nothing to do with the both of us and left her to give birth alone with farewell words of "You can blame no one but yourself for this mistake."

I believed my entire life that women only existed to give pleasure to men and to live under the obedience of men. We women were born to be living under the impression of men. We needed to be petite, have a big bust, and plump lips, and our innocence to be snatched away from us by those nasty demons, and believed that there was nothing we could do about it.

My mother was a menace to society, labeled unpure because she gave birth to me without being wed to my father. They said it was her fault.

Every day as I would shop in the marketplace for food for me and my mother, I was reminded by wedded women in the town that she was a disgusting human being just because she loved a man who did not love her back.

I would always be the one shopping for groceries, helping my mother with everything because she was too afraid to go out. People's judgments are petrifying. Their words pierce into my mom's skin, much worse pain than getting pierced by needles.

That is why my mother raised me to be exactly like those wedded women. She said being like those people is far better than being their victims. But I did not want to be anything like them. I decided to follow my mother's orders, doing whatever she wanted me to do. I took my dancing classes, learned how to make proper tea while miserably failing to do so, and learned appropriate words to use while talking to the proper men of the town.

I know the moment I will turn 18 my mom will be scorching the town for rich, fine, old young men for me to be wedded to. That is where my plan will come to life. What is my plan do you say? Well, I will simply tell my mother that I do not want to wed.

I know. I am just as much as nervous as you are but I am sure it will work. My mother loves me and I know she will respect my wishes because I am her daughter, her only child, the person that brings her joy.

If I were in her shoes and I had a daughter, I would have respected her wishes. That is how I know my mother will respect me.

Turning 18 is a wish for every lady because it is every lady's dream to get married, specifically to rich folks, but not to me. The thought of turning 18 means I will trapped with no escape. I will need to bear children and that is something that I am not ready for, mentally and physically.

My wish is to simply go to art school, master my dancing, and become a classical ballerina. Out of all the classes my mother made me go to I have found my passion in ballet. When I am dancing I forget where I am forget who I am and forget all my problems. Dancing is a drug that I am addicted to, and I would be sad to let it go.

Which is why I will not let it go and I will tell my mom straight to her face that I will not wed.

*conversations between navea and her mother are in french*

The bell of the town rings waking up the entire town from their slumber, that bell was too god damn loud it is enough to wake the whole of Paris.

I get out of my bed and head straight to the washroom to get ready today. I take off my nightgown and hop into the bathtub which is filled with hot water that my mom has prepared for me, yes my mother wakes up earlier than everyone because she loves to do all the housework before the sun comes to view.