Chapter 1
Unique, a word that can be used as a compliment or used as an insult in disguise. The way they change the word “different” to “unique” trying to be as subtle as the sun is when it sets, quick and easy. But it impacts the same. How through the chattering, the laughing and the pointing lies the word “different”. How everyday when a child confides in another they soothe them by using the word “unique”. They say it as though it’s a difference, as though it’s better. I always had known from a young age that I was different. I saw things that others couldn’t and had labels placed upon me, towering, waiting for the downfall, an opening, a time to seize the broken. But what happens to the broken once they’ve broken too much is unknown. Everyones different and breaks differently, ever since I was a child I had the ability to see people’s pasts who I have physical contact with, and feel their emotions. Although I am able to see others pasts and sometimes their futures I’ve never met my parents. Whether they’re alive or dead, the day they left me at the orphanage was the day they died in my mind at least and that I wouldn’t ever see them again after that. Or at least that was what I thought. My name is Lily, I’m nearly sixteen years old and my story begins at the dawn of morning on a warm spring day. At the doorstep of an orphanage. I was one year old and have no memory of that day but my caretaker Lisa for the time I was there remembers it crystal clear as though it was yesterday. She had told me that when she picked me up she knew I was special by my distinctive silver hair and my eyes. As how others called me a freak when my eyes would change colour, she instead told me that they were beautiful and that they made me who I am. As minutes turned to hours, hours turned to days, days turned to weeks, weeks turned to months and months turned to years, eventually at the age of four it was time for me to say goodbye to Lisa and find a family. Unfortunately the family I got wasn’t anything like the family I longed for. Lisa had given me a gift of blue contacts to help me get along with others better. The house would always be quiet unless their blood related child George was picking on me as usual. George was three years older than me and just because he is their blood related child, as well as he is the heir to their rich business, he had thought that had given him the right to pick on me. He had also known that his parents had only adopted me to look good in the news. My “Mom” and “Dad” weren’t great people either. “Mom” would drown her sorrows of her life in her blood red wine, as “Dad” would cloud the room with his rich cuban cigars. My “Dad” is a very sexist man and believes that women should do all the work. But my so-called “Mom” thinks she is too good to go on her knees to do housework so it gets left to me. I rarely get to go outside as they hired a tutor to work with me so they wouldn’t feel embarrassed after giving the “Rockbelle name” as they say. And that they wouldn’t want a disgrace like me to “dirty the name”. It went like this for years on end until everything changed. I was stuck at home doing the usual house work, as the Rockbelle’s barged in with a clatter. “Change into this we are going out to la bonne nuit right away,” my “Mom” said. I did as I was told though since I will take any chance I can to get outside and see the world. I hurried up the shiny stairs, trying not to ruin my polishing job and entered the attic which was barley an excuse for a room.
