The One He's Not

Evil Stepmothers & Big-Headed Brothers

Evil Stepmothers & Big-Headed Brothers

KAT

~ Ten Years Later ~

I slammed my bedroom door behind me and rested against it while kicking off my painstaking heals. There is something about heals being torn off and your dress being undone that makes me want to smile.

After changing into my favourite sweater and sweat pants, I throw the dress and shoes deep into my closet for another day. With an exhausted sigh, I collapsed onto my bed and allowed my body to absorb into the mattress.

It was late at night and I think everyone in the palace is asleep. I had just returned from a ‘date’ with Dexter and we were probably the only ones who were awake at this hour.

Yes, you read it right, I said date. Dexter and I have been going on these so called ‘dates’ ever since I found out about the proposal and it was all mine and his parents doing as a way to make us closer. Well, there strategy worked because I don’t hate Dexter’s guts as much as I used to.

I turned to my bed side table and reach for the switch to turn off my lamp, but instead, my arm came in contact with a wooden photo frame, causing it to fall to the floor.

In a panic, I reach for it just in time before it shattered to the ground. I checked for scratches and any other injuries and when the inspection was done, I pulled the frame to my chest and smiled. The photo that the frame held showed the good times in my life, times that were so much simpler than the present.

In the photo, I was ten years old. My father and mother were on either side of me, holding my hand, while they swung me back and forth. I was in mid air in the picture and my red hair was sprawled in separate directions as the wind picked it up. We were all smiling, which made my heart sink deep into my chest. We weren’t smiling like that anymore, and it hasn’t been like that for ten years.

Without knowing, a single tear fell down my cheek. As soon as this happened, my bedroom lamp started to dim and a cold breeze blew right past me, making me shiver and sink deeper into my bed sheets. I knew that my powers were acting up, which sent me into another panic.

I gently placed the photo down on my bed and took a few deep breaths. Once the breeze had calmed down and the lights went back to normal, I grabbed the photo again to look at it.

“I miss you, mom,” I whispered, as I ran a thumb over her beautiful image. Even after 10 years of not having her here with me, I could still hear her voice and picture what she would have looked like as if she had never left us.

As I thought of her, the sadness started to creep its way back, but I resisted. The last time I let my emotions run wild, I had lost someone I loved.

My mom was gone because of me.

I kissed the frame and placed it on my night stand, so I could finally go to sleep when there was a knock on my bedroom door. Curfew in the palace was early, so having someone pay a visit to my room was shocking.

What was even more shocking was the person who had just kindly let themselves into my room without my permission.

“I’m sleeping,” I grumbled, while pulling the cover over the top of my head.

“It doesn’t look like you are,” The women whispered with a hint of laughter in her voice. I’m not sure what she thought was funny because around her, I would never utter such sound.

Veronica sat on the edge of my bed as I peaked from underneath my blankets. “What do you want?” I snapped, with as much attitude as I could muster.