Selected: Part 2 - Flowers with Thorns

13. THE PAST

IT WASN'T A GOOD NIGHT. Being completed fed up with the constant nightmares, I felt I needed to confront the troubling past I had tried so hard to push away. It was clear my mind wasn't letting me forget. Completely worn out from the day, I had tried to get some rest, yet I was plagued by awful memories in my dreams, keeping me from sleep yet again.

I sat up straight in my bed, and relived what I'd been trying to forget. I was born a single child to Lily and Victor Atwood, recently married Sixes. They were both housekeepers, so we lived near complete poverty in a small, run-down home. My farthest memory is of being brought to work with my mother, and watching her clean. Only later did I understand that it was because she couldn't take a maternity leave from work, and couldn't afford a nanny.

I don't remember much of anything before I was five years old, therefore I'm not sure when it all started. What I do remember, is the screaming and the fighting. Most days, I sat alone in my room, with nothing else to do than read the one old book I had, my prized possession, a silly fairy-tale where the prince and the princess lived happily ever after. Elementary school was free for the lower castes, but far less prestigious than the ones of the upper class. I looked forwards to school, because it meant I got away from the yelling and cold air of my home. I had friends, but was never invited to play with them. I begged and cried to my mother to get toys, but with barely any money for food, all I could get were papers and crayons. I was jealous of the other children, who had dolls and stuffed animals. I cried a lot at school.

It gradually became worse and worse, and toys were the least of my concerns. More than the yelling, I had to endure watching my mother get abused, far too often. I wanted to get help, but I didn't know how: I was a helpless, poor child, and no one would listen to me. Bored with my mother, my father turned on me. I could still feel his grip on my arms, his kicks on my stomach. Eventually, he got fed up with me, too. He blamed my mother and I for all his problems, so I was dropped off at an orphanage without a second glance. I still don't know what happened to my mother. I'd like to think that I miss her, but she was so far gone, I barely knew her.

The orphanage wasn't the best, but at least they didn't hurt me, there. I was too old to be adopted; the youngest girls had the best chance, so I stayed there for three, long years. We were all girls, and we all wore the same old, dirty dresses. We all ate the same, bland food every single day. We had no toys, nothing else to do but talk among each other. I had nothing there, but at least there was no yelling or pain anymore. I never get nightmares about the orphanage.

I was eleven years old when I was finally adopted; I was ecstatic. How wrong I'd been to think this was where I'd finally find family, happiness. My foster parents were also Sixes, Anne and Andrew Chase. They had lost their son, Felix, to the war, and adopted me as a way to fill the void. And how big that void was inside the grieving mother's heart.

Her affection towards me was almost too much, at first. Then, it started shifting. Anne would drink too much, and suddenly hate me. She'd say all these horrible things about me, then sober up and told me she loved me. It was toxic, difficult to bear. She showed me how to sew, taught me French, then would turn around and threaten to throw me on the streets, throw glass bottles at me. She would love, then hate me all at once and as child still, it was all so confusing. My foster father, on the other hand, was distant and cold. We were poor, and my foster mother spent all her money on alcohol so eventually, it ran out. The solution to our money problems, according to Andrew, was selling me. Anne protested, but in the end, was too unstable to actually do anything about it. I was sold to the palace as a worker, on a contract that ended when I turned twenty-one. And yet, out of all the places I lived, the palace was certainly the best, even as an unpaid worker. I sometimes missed my foster mother, in the moments she'd be the loving mother I always wanted, but her sudden fits of rage still haunt my nightmares.

When I was fifteen, I found myself crushing on Ethan Shreave, the gentle prince who'd helped me without a second thought, and here I was now, feeling so close to him. I had grown up with two unhappy couples, yet still I believe I could be happy and understood with Ethan. Ethan would never yell at me. Exhausted, I laid back down on the bed, wanting so bad to just sleep, wishing so bad my dreams were of Ethan, rather than of these people I wanted, needed to forget.