Merged

Chapter One

This is not a Cinderella story.

I'll admit that I'd read so many fairy tales in between chores that it took me a while to accept this. Like all damsels in distress, I too believed that someday my prince would come. The truth is, nobody was going to scour the city to save me from my dreary life because outside of the Somerset mansion, I didn't exist.

My wealthy family sat primp and perfect on the upper east side of Sagefield, and I was the dirty little secret they had to keep hidden. In rich, white society, the only thing worse than dating outside of your race was having a biracial child. Lorelei, my mother whom I was on an exclusively first-name basis with, had an affair with an African-American man that resulted in her getting pregnant with me. From the moment I was born, I was a rift between she, her husband Virgil, and my older sister Jade. My existence was a constant physical reminder of the betrayal, and they couldn't stand to look at me. To keep up appearances, they hid me away in their lavish home and put me to work as soon as they deemed me old enough.

I was moreso a servant to them than a member of the Somerset family. I grew up watching Jade get spoiled with the finest things money could buy while the most I got was new cleaning supplies whenever I ran short. If I aced all of my online courses, she would come back from her fancy boarding school with A+s and a soccer trophy. She claimed she "didn't care about me or anything I did because I would always be a nuisance", but she seemed to feel compelled to step me up in anything I did despite her obvious advantages. I couldn't escape her shadow, and eventually I just stopped trying. After all, this wasn't a Cinderella story. I wasn't going to prevail over my evil sister one day, because "karma" wasn't real. Jade would be handed her happily ever after while I would be stuck chasing after mine. That's just how life worked.

Obviously, I had been cynical for a good portion of my life. I was so bitter that when Lorelei was diagnosed with advanced stage breast cancer, I was almost happy about it. That sounds horrible now that I think back, but how was I to know that I'd be the only one crying over her death bed in nine months time?

When she told me the news, I shrugged it off although I was surprised that she was even speaking to me. It definitely explained why she had been assigning me a lot more chores than usual. Our family had more than enough money to treat her, so why should I be worried? Why did she expect me to feel sorry for her when there were millions of poor cancer patients that couldn't afford their hospital bills? However, it wasn't until she started chemotherapy that I saw Lorelei as human for the first time.

I watched as her golden curls fell out until she went completely bald, then as her eyes went from vibrant blue to dull gray. She was weak and pathetic with no one to help her, seeing as Virgil was constantly on business trips and Jade was away at school. I felt a tug on my heart that I had never experienced before. I tried to ignore it, but in the frequent instances that I had to clean her vomit off the floor, it became impossible.

It was a Monday afternoon when I hesitantly tiptoed into Lorelei's bedroom to ask if she needed anything. She glanced at me through sunken eyes, blinking as she was surprised to see me offering my help instead of waiting to be given a task. In a small, raspy voice, she asked me to open the curtains and crack the windows. I obliged, revealing the twilight sky and letting in the cool November air. I stood at the foot of her bed, watching as she picked up her diamond Rolex from the bedside table and peer at it closely. "Four forty-five p.m..." Lorelei murmured under her breath. "It's enough that my health is spent, now the sun is gone too?" She grumbled before collapsing back onto the bed. I sucked in a breath and averted my eyes, sadness welling inside me at seeing her in such a pitiful state. "If you need anything else...just let me know." I said in an attempt to sound sincere. She tentatively reached forward to let her hand ghost over mine. "Thank you." Lorelei whispered. Her lips spread into a twinge of a smile, something I had never seen from her before in my life.