Author's Note: Hello again! This is the sequel to my story Bad Seed. This chapter is a sort of Prologue and in case it isn't clear, it is told from Rosalie's POV. The rest of the chapters will switch POV's as before. This is just the intro so please forgive the vague and slow start. Enjoy!
I never thought that it would come to it, that this is what life had in store for me. Years have flown by and I cannot for the life of me tell you where they went. There are markers of course, there always are. Life, neatly stored into a beautifully bound picture album. The photos always tell a different story than the one you remember. Everything looks happier, easier in photographs.
The wedding day, in the photos everyone is smiling. The bride and groom look so carefree and in love. What you don't see is the pain in the brides eyes, knowing that her groom cheated on her mere days before the wedding and the shame in her heart that she also cheated. The best man is all smiles, trying to hide the fact that he is so obsessed with the bride that it hurts him and she will never be his despite last night where her judgment faltered and they made love.
Do you see the father of the groom there? The handsome older man with his beautiful younger wife on his arm. Proud of his remaining son but never forgetting the lost one? One cannot help but wonder if he lusts after the bride. The bride whom he had before he knew who she belonged to. The groom sure hasn't forgotten the fact, evident in the way he narrows his eyes when the bride places a chaste kiss to his fathers cheek.
The photos never show the drunken bridesmaids snorting lines of coke behind the gazebo with each other, devastated that they aren't the ones marrying him. Ah, and him! The groom, the photos could never do him justice. The copper of his hair is not something that can be captured by film, his devastating smile and killer green eyes look dull in comparison to the real thing. He smiles and the casual observer of the photo would think him a doting new husband, but further inspection reveals a darker emotion. It is not doting in his eyes, it is dominance and possession. The bride is his, his property! No one else's. If he knew what happened between the bride and the best man he would tear him to shreds. But all you see in the photograph is smiles, dancing, love. Look carefully, you might see me there in the background of a photo or two, heart hurting for the one I know should be here, for the one the groom misses most. If the veil of my long blond hair is covering my face, its only so no one can see my tears. Though I am long past the time where I am immersed in the crowd, I am always around somewhere, observing and mourning for what I will never have. With him gone, I don't want it. Snap a picture of this, my face is the realist show of emotion here in this farce of a wedding.
The honeymoon photos are choreographed perfection. Lazy smiles on the beach, from both the young bride and groom even though the beach still holds bits of horror for both of them after the tragedy that they endured just a few short years ago. Another photo from the deck of a small sail boat. The bride has a plastered on fake smile as her groom holds onto her tightly. Can you tell that she is terrified of boats and all the nauseating memories they bring forth? In the grooms smile can you see that he knows all this and still insisted on the ride? The photo from the hotel room is the realest. The bride seeping peacefully in her grooms arms, he snapped a photo of them as he places a tender kiss on her brow.
Turn a few pages in the photo book and you'll find a the young wife round with child, cupping her swollen belly in front of her. An adoring husband can be seen in the reflection of the photo. The mother to be glows with the effects of pregnancy and her brown hair flows loosely around her making her appear as some sort of goddess. She looks happy. Can you see all the nights of sleep she has missed wondering where her husband was and in who's bed? Can you see the uncertainty on worry bitten lips? Pleading, praying, and hoping that the baby in her womb isn't born blonde haired and blue eyed like the possible father.
These pictures of measurement stop abruptly at seven months. The young wife woke one day in a pool of blood that poured from between her legs like a stream. The intense physical pain was dulled by the agony she felt inside for her lost child. The baby, a girl was said to have had no visible hair yet, but the young wife saw what no one else did, the fine wisps of blonde through the blood.
After the loss of the baby, there aren't many pictures to collect in the photo book for a while. The young bride mourns the lost child bitterly and that would be plain as day for all to see in any photo. Does a mother die a little with her child? The young wife does. Life speeds past her even though everyday feels as syrupy slow as watching the progress of a growing tree. Her husband mourns too, but in his own way. Drinking, smoking, indulging in all the things from their club days in a desperate attempt at drowning his pain.
A year passes and the fire hot pain dulls to a throbbing ache and life becomes livable again. Her belly soon grows again, and this time the husband can't deny what he knows is in his heart is going on. His wife has been with another man, this child is not his. But like so many other situations in the young couple's life, they remain silent. The photo's this time start much later on, when the young wife is near delivery. The smiles are back, the young wife glows in a way only motherhood can make you glow and the young husband cups her belly like nothing is amiss.
Before the child is born, promises are exchanged. The young wife and husband swear to be faithful, they swear the past is behind them and with this child they can begin anew. They have made these promises before, so many times. They hurt each other over and over again with no thought of the irreparable damage it has done, is still doing. I watch, I observe, but I no longer intervene. How many times can you beg someone not to destroy before you no longer have the energy, the will to tell them again? I have lost count and don't care to try again.
The child is born healthy and strong. The photos show an exhausted new mother cradling the scrunch faced baby boy her husband by her side staring down adoringly at his child. If he finds the newborn's mess of blonde hair painful, he doesn't show it.
The young father is happily chasing his crawling baby boy in photos when the young mother is once again growing with child. She smiles at them and it is radiant. It gives me hope this photo. Maybe they have changed. Maybe their children will have a chance.
This child is a girl, her hair a strange mix of her mother's brown and her fathers copper. She is a stunning little thing, but even so I refuse the offer to be godmother to the baby. I can't. It's too much. Although she has big green eyes like her daddy, she smiles like her uncle and it breaks my heart.
Pictures are all I have for a long time. Its all I can handle. The young mother, getting older each year sends a packet of photos without fail once a year. Before I know it, the babies from the pictures are gangly legged children, then awkward mismatched heights at eleven and twelve. Now as I sit with the newest packet in hand, I cannot help the tears that fill my eyes. The children are now blossomed teens. The boy looking every bit like the person he isn't meant to look like, his real father. His hair a pale blonde and icy blue eyes but he has his mother's kindness written all over him. The girl looks like trouble. She has the infectious smile that I miss so very much, and her hair is a wild mess of copper-brown waves, she is her mother in looks with her daddy's personality, with green eyes so cat-like and curious she seems she is always hiding a secret.
I know when I see these pictures that I have to see them, its time.
Please let me know what you think! It really helps me along!
Thanks for reading!