Tulip Face [ON HOLD]

So long to happiness

TulipFace.

It wasn’t as if I grew up as a child praying to God that I’d be nothing but empty space. It wasn’t as if I asked to never be noticed… to move along with the wind like a plastic bag abandoned in a vacant parking lot. You were a child once too… you remember what you wanted to be when you grew up. When someone asked you, you’d say something fantastical like “I want to be the president” or “I want to be the Queen of England”. Answers like “I want to work at a gas station no one cares about and be a part-time failed author” were just innocent jokes. If you’re anything like me, you had no idea that some things were actually impossible.

We grew up with the belief that we could be anything we wanted to be… we just had to believe in ourselves. Trust me; I had enough confidence for a dozen people. If confidence was what won the game, I would be a millionaire at this very moment. And I guess I was when I moved into the Maison De Bella after my Grandfather’s death. He was a bigwig; the founder of some huge tech company whose name escapes me (I’ve never been interested in his business). His death wasn’t anything that brought me any sort of grief, nor my twin brother, Alec. My mother, Rosie was the only person who really felt any sort of negativity towards his death, and that was only because she regretted never asking him for his credit card information before he departed. We grew up poor, you see, and the fact that her father was content with letting us live in a trailer park while he sat pretty in various gorgeous island condos angered my mother to the point where she’d do anything for a slice of Grandpa Bennett’s pot of gold. The few times she was able to swipe a few coins she wasted quickly on things we’d never need at any point; a lemon juicer, a magic vegetable chopper, and the undeniably very important Chillow (for those of you who don’t know what that is, it is a pillow that forever stays cool).

Despite our crazy unmotherly mother and our poor living conditions, Alec and I managed ourselves well in school. We didn’t see each other much because of the senseless school rule that siblings couldn’t have classes with each other, but we would always talk in the hallways or eat at lunch together. People always found it weird how close we were, but if your brother was all you had to rely on your entire life, wouldn’t you cling on to him incredibly tight too?

As for my dad who I’m sure you’re wondering about, he’s non-existent. I mean of course he existed, but to me, he was never apart of my life and to this day he’s never made the effort to be there, so I’ve just sort of written him out of my life. His absence was not traumatic or sorrowful; it would actually feel unnatural to live in a house with a leading man in the family. Of course my mother has had her fair share of boyfriends, but we’ve always had this silent agreement that we were nothing more than toys to my mother and that was it. As long as you didn’t talk to me, I wouldn’t talk to you. They were never there for long anyways.

When we finished school, I really had no idea what was next for me. The few friends that I had were already applying for countless colleges and were well on their way of becoming doctors or singers or whatever they aspired to be. I found that I had interest in very little, and the things that I did find interesting were of no use to the world. I love to write, and I love painting even more, but where does that fit in? Grandpa Bennett always had the wonderful little saying “If you don’t provide, then you’re nothing at all.” It was at a very young age where he shut down my aspirations to become a successful author. I feel really childish to blame him for my constant writer’s block, but I can’t find any other reason for why it was always so hard to squeeze a few sentences out of me onto paper.

My life was shaken up when Grandpa Bennett died. Not because he died, but rather because he left me with the good-for-nothing outhouse in the middle of nowhere, Maison De Bella. It was the oversized, gaudy mansion out in the forests of North Bend, fifty miles out from town. My brother on the other hand inherited Grandpa Bennett’s entire business including the billions of dollars stored away in his bank. It wouldn’t be lying if I said I felt a bit cheated, especially because I was the one who had went through my entire high school years with a 4.0 GPA, but I had faith in Alec.

Mom couldn’t have been more disappointed in what she inherited. Grandpa Bennett left her with. A rusty golden necklace with the words “Life forever speeds along” engraved in it was her father’s goodbye to her. While her two children inherited nice little flats to sleep comfortably in without having to worry about bills, she was stuck with a rusty golden necklace. I for one was enchanted by its beauty. Mom didn’t see the beauty in the little things, especially when the people around her were showered in big things. She left Alec and me to explore our inheritances alone for a good month. No calls, no texts, no e-mails. She didn’t reach out to us out of childish rage, but we didn’t pay her much mind. In fact, it was a little nice to have her off of our backs.

I looked for any way out of having to move into Maison De Bella. There were absolutely no loopholes; the house was paid off, came with a servant and a maid (whom both must’ve been older than dirt), held a shit load of money in its cellar, and I had nowhere else to go. College was a definite no; I had never been into going to college. The thought of living on campus with a bunch of sleezball girls terrified me, and I had no intention of going through another four years of school.

So there I was; nineteen year old Adelaide Bennett moving out of the earth. I would disintegrate in the cabin along with my grandpa’s old records and dusty furniture. I would be completely forgotten. My worst fear of being nothing more than empty space would come alive right in front of my eyes.

Shockingly, the exact opposite would unfold.