A Rose By Any Other Name

Chapter 15

NARCISSA'S POV

What I ponder in this room is mine. My own believes, my own thoughts. Stupidly, I am happier than I was before; maybe because I now have something to think about rather than my bleak circumstances or the throbbing pain occupying the latter part of my brain.

Thoughts unlike my actions couldn't be censored, so I believe. So I know. I shouldn't be thinking like this, I shouldn't be thinking at all. I should be reflecting, on all my 'sins' or whatever they will start calling them next week. My biggest sin was my own lie to take to my grave. It lays with me in life and shall remain with me in death.

But thinking like this is stupid, idiotic even. Thinking opens up holes that we try our best to cover, in whatever way we try and fail to do. Thinking makes you weak; it can and will hurt your chance.

I must be stronger, I have to be.

To survive.

My daughter deserves a better life. We all do. I now make it my mission to get through this, for her. It is hard to believe I could ever have power over Lucius, the husband who the past almost 20 years has dictated my life, owned my body, my mind.

But I have to believe I can do this, because if I don't, why should anyone else do so ?

And so I go on. Step by step off of the bed, towards the approaching padding of mangled feet at the door. She had arrived finally.

I could see the tip of knife catch the light from the flimsily cotton sheets, blinding me once I did so. What more did I have to have removed from my sight. It was here.

As I attempt and successfully open this door, I wish this wasn't happening. I sincerely wish this wasn't me, wasn't my story. But life isn't a dream. It's a living nightmare but we keep going on, in false hope for a better chance next time. The faint click reassured me, my reflection in the landing mirror stared back at me and it was at that point I finally realised.

"I am free"