As Long As You Love Me

Prologue ~ Mistakes

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☼ ოɪɬcɦɪɛ sƙყ ☼

Have you ever felt like your entire life was a mistake? Like you're nothing but a waste of space? 

I know for a fact I was a mistake. I was put up for adoption when I wasn't even three months old. Of course, a kind, loving family consisting of two happy parents and a one-year-old bouncing baby girl graciously took me in. 

17 years have passed. 

People change. I've learned that the hard way. My dad is never home now. My image-obsessed mom is too ashamed to even look at me. My sister absolutely hates my guts.

I'm a nobody. 

Like a ghost, floating around wherever the wind takes me. No one sees me, and I don't see them. I'm alone. I have no one to lean on, no one to look up to. I don't live, I survive. I don't breathe, I inhale. I am nothing. 

I feel like I'm drowning. 

Drowning in an ocean as big as the one outside my bedroom window. Drowning in a way that the only direction to go in is down. No matter how hard I kick and flail, I am dragged down to the ocean floor, never to resurface, never to see the light again. 

Not that it matters. 

Because I am a mistake anyway. 

But I dream. I dream of dreams too big for reality. I dream of being somebody, somebody special. Somebody important. Somebody other people loved and respected. Somebody who was anybody. 

But even dreams die. 

I want to break through the surface of that ocean and take a deep, cleansing breath. I want to see the beautiful sun glinting in the reflection of the water. I want to throw my head back and laugh until my throat goes dry.  

But I can't break through, because I am forever drowning...or so I thought. 

One day, a life preserver came to my rescue. 

A life preserver that had luxurious, caramel-colored hair, wore expensive designer clothes, carried thousands of dollars in her back pocket, and smelled sharply of Chanel. 

A life preserver named Demetria Rosewood.