Mother Knows Best

Prologue

I am not actually a villain.

I know that's what everyone thinks, that I am just a cruel woman who spoils her daughters and has some senseless, evil vendetta against her stepdaughter. But that's not actually how it happened. My story was not supposed to go this way.

I understand the desire to believe her, though. Her version is more convenient. It's easy to assign values and morals and lessons to be learned when one person is seen as so obviously evil and the other is completely pure at heart.

But children, that's not the way it happens in real life. Life is messy. Lines are not always clearly drawn. Rarely can a person be defined as wholly good or evil; they can only be judged by the way they handle whatever situation they are put into. And contrary to what she would have you believe, "Cinderella" did not handle her situation with as much grace and charm and dignity as one would expect from royalty.

I am not telling you this story to earn your sympathy, or to teach a lesson on endurance or strength, or to set an example for future generations. I am telling this story for no other reason than that it is my story, and because I have a right to tell it.

And it starts like this:

I am not actually a villain.