The King's Rejected Lady

Talia's Past

"YOU CAN be quite desperate, Lady Victoria. Are you that afraid to lose Cory? Wake up. You will never own him not until you will take the risk of trusting someone. But looking at you, you're just a scared little girl who chose to abandon him first just because you're afraid of being betrayed."

What Tessa said haunted Tori that night. She was sitting on her bed and no amount of Chamomile Tea could appease her troubled mind. All of her handmaidens retired already. The estate was eerily silent but her mind was in chaos.

Trusting someone, huh?

Staring at her canopy as she lay on her bed, Tori remembered her life as Talia the moment she closed her eyes

FLASHBACK...

TALIA WATCHED with fervent curiosity as some middle school students rushed past her. They all looked happy as they snickered with each other from some sick joke between them that they only knew. Talia walked faster away from the scene that reminded her of everything she did and will never have.

Opening the door with her spare key, Talia walked inside the deserted single-space apartment that she and her mom rented for quite some time now. She went straight to the kitchen only to find a mountain of bills on the table. With the way they were scattered, Talia knew that her mother locked herself up again inside their restroom.

Glancing for a clean towel, Talia took notice of the kitchen knife's absence. She already knew the drill. If her mother could not handle the stress, she would lock herself up somewhere to inflict some self-harm. Talia was already immune to this since she was little. Before, she would freak out watching her gentle mom going outside from god-knows-where with a lot of blood oozing from her hand. But now, she realized that her mom did not want to die but she wanted to numb the stress that took a toll on her.

Judging from the tons of letters on the table, Talia knew she had to brace herself for a major problem.

With a clean white towel in her hand, Talia knocked on the door of their restroom. She pressed her left ear into the door and she heard a sound on the other side. "Mom, I got some towels for you. I will also leave the first aid outside. Just come out if you're hungry. I brought some food from work."

Talia, though she's still a middle school student, the local library took her as the librarian's aid. She needed this as a referral in the future since she's aiming for Princeton.

After she set the table, Talia saw her mother. "Hey, sweetie. How's school?" Just like any other day, she got the infamous warm smile that could fool anyone except her. She knew that her mother was suffering from depression. Her mother wore a knitted sweater to cover up her arms where she liked to cut herself.

Talia returned her mother's smile. She saw how her mother avoided looking at the sorted enveloped beside her."The usual, mom. Hmm, these fish 'n chips are the best, I tell you."

Talia wanted to crack up with how they looked like they were playing pretend inside a big dollhouse. A third person's view of how they interacted with each other would believe that there's nothing when everything around them was wrong, a clinically depressed mother with an equally fake child.

"So, what's inside the letters, mom?" Talia made it seem like she was just asking about the weather as she kept on digging her food. In her peripheral vision, she observed her mother freeze for a moment.

Her mother cleared her throat first before she spoke with careful words as if Talia would snap, which was something that would never happen. Talia would rather keep all her heartaches inside her than lashed it all out. She disliked how her mother lashed all of it in a confined space as if it would protect Talia. Instead, it only made her realize that she needed to be strong not just for her but also for her mother.