Every single day for the next week, Rose continued to be extremely polite and courteous. She knew that it was in her nature to say things without thinking and was just so scared that she might be kicked out. Everyone else acted 100 normal, but not Rose. She was entirely unlike herself.

But all of that changed one night, after only eight days of living at the widow's house. It was night time, and she was going downstairs to empty Mabel's bed pan and get her some food. As she crossed into the kitchen, she was Momma Brady sitting in the living room, reading a book. Momma Brady looked up when she heard Rose and smiled. Rose nodded and smiled back, then headed back up the stairs, when Momma Brady's cat hissed loudly, startling Rose. She stepped back but neglected to place her foot upon a stair, and she felt herself falling. She reached a waving hand out and grabbed the banister, causing all of her weight to shift, and instead of stopping herself, she ended up falling down all five stairs and landing right on the heater. Her arm scraped across a sharp edge on it and she could feel the blood trickling down.

Momma Brady rushed over to Rose when she heard her scream. She looked aghast at the three or four inches of skin that had been peeled back, exposing her bone in one spot. "My, my, my," said Momma Brady, "That must hurt like the dickens." She ran and got some supplies and began washing the wound while Rose cried. She touched the soapy water to the bare flesh and Rose wailed.

"Oh SHIT!" Rose screeched. "Shit, shit, shit!" She was then horrified by what she had just said to Momma, the woman who prayed all the time and never cursed. "Oh…Momma Brady," she began, "I'm…so sorry."

"Now, now, now," Momma Brady said, keeping with her habit of saying everything three times, "Don't you worry 'bout that." She finished patching up Rose, and then took her to the hospital to be properly cared for.

After that night, things were different. Rose wasn't scared to say what she thought and act like herself. She was actually beginning to feel at home, instead of just feeling like a guest.

In a few days, she was well again and her arm barely hurt. It was time to look for a job. Nancy suggested that she try and work at the library with her, but Rose didn't think that she could stand to be with that girl all the time. Unfortunately, there were very few jobs open to her, a young, inexperienced woman with none of the skills that most jobs required. Every place she applied, they told her she was either under qualified or overqualified. And this rejection led her to putting a new cut on her body almost every night.

Days later, it was Nancy's twenty-first birthday, and Momma Brady gave her two tickets to see Peter Pan at the local theatre. Nancy invited Rose to go along, and she eagerly accepted. She had read the book a while back, but her mother that never taken her to see the actual play. And she sat there completely swept away with the fantastic production. She cried and laughed and clapped louder than anyone that night and when the show was over, she knew exactly what she wanted to do.

"Momma Brady, may I be an actress?" she asked after the show.

"Oh, that aint a sensible career," Brady told her.

"I know…but my husband…" she began.

"He was an actor?"

"No…artist. But he wanted me to act, I think." It was difficult to explain.

"If it's what y'all want to do and it brings a paycheck, then I aint gonna stop ya."

"So I have your blessing?"

"Yup," Momma Brady smiled sweetly and Rose couldn't stop herself from hugging her. "Now, now, now, my child. You go off to some auditions tomorrow. But for now, we sleep, eh? Say, it's getting kinda warm out. Why are y'all still wearing long sleeves?"

Rose stepped back, afraid that Momma Brady would pull up the sleeves and see all of her cuts. "I…I'm still cold." She said a little too quickly, and ran up the stairs and went to bed.

&&&&&

The Mainland Theatre was hosting auditions for a show, and Rose decided to give it a go. She sat in the auditorium with nearly a hundred other aspiring actresses. One by one, they were called to do a scene, and as she watched them perform, she knew that she was an imposter. How could she possibly compete with all of these gorgeous and talented women.

"Dawson, Rose," the director called. Trembling, she got to her feet and made her way onto the staged. Her stomach was in knots and she was sure she was going to begin. "What experience have you got?" asked the director.

"None, sir."

He raised his eyebrows. "Okay. Begin."

She began to read her line. She stared at the script and stumbled over words and spoke quietly.

"That's enough," said the director calmly, after only a few minutes. "No thank you." Rose nodded and ran off the stage.

&&&&&

"I'm a fraud!" she cried to Nancy that night. "I was a disgrace to the acting community!"

"Well…maybe acting just isn't your thing," Nancy told her.

"Maybe. Hey, aren't you supposed to be encouraging me?"

"I call 'em like I see 'em."

Rose shrugged, and ran to the bathroom. She locked the door and grabbed her razor and her rag, and put I nick on her leg. She couldn't do it on her arm anymore. Summer was coming, and wearing long sleeved dresses was impractical. Once the bleeding had stopped, she picked herself up and went on her way to her next audition. It was another flop. Her third stop was the Manhattan Stage Door Theatre. She did a little better, she thought. The director even said, "We'll be in touch."

Rose never heard from them. She had been good, but not good enough. Momma Brady told her she would have to get a part time job until this "acting thing" started working out for her. Sadly, the only place that would hire her was the library. And so she was stuck with Nancy almost 24/7. They slept in the same room, took meals together, walked to work together, worked together, and so on. Rose was just glad she wasn't followed into the washroom.

She found little ways to avoid Nancy and her antics. She'd offer to do odd jobs around the library, and would steal up to the roof of the widow's house whenever there was a spare moment.

She didn't cry much anymore, though she always felt like it. Cutting took place at least three times a week. She didn't try and stop, nor did she want to.

Every week or so she went to another audition. Even though she wasn't getting any parts, at least she was trying. Jack would have been satisfied with that.

For the time being, Rose was living in a world of books. When life got her down, when she felt depressed, she would escape her life and live with the characters in whatever books looked good at the library. She would experience adventure with Peter Pan and never grow up. She would fall in love with Romeo and become friends with Lady Macbeth. She became the closest confidents of Eleanor and Marianne Dashwood. Reading was perhaps the only way she could forget her misery.

&&&&&

Rose was sitting upon the window sill in her room, reading one day. Nancy was off entertaining some other lucky widow with her antics. So Rose was free to read from her favorite book, A Little Princess. She'd read it for the first time as a girl. When she had been sent away to boarding school, her father gave it to her. This near fairly tale about the 7 year old Sara Crewe, motherless, who started life as an heiress to a fortune, turned overnight into a penniless servant girl and eventually changed her life through her own efforts, gripped her imagination as no other book had ever done. When she was younger, she'd read it over and over again, and suffered Sarah's humiliation, cried over her despair, mourned the loss of her father, and savored her final triumph. She had read her first copy so many times that the binding finally wore and tore off. She no longer had that one, but a fresh one from the library. And she felt like if she tried hard enough to become a princess inside, like Sara Crewe, perhaps she too might one day reverse her misfortune and be happy again.

She was about half way through with it right now, sitting on her windowsill. She was completely lost in Sarah's world, but still looked up when she heard the rustling of covers. It was Mabel. She had stuck her head out from under the blankets and was watching Rose read.

Rose smiled at her. "Hello, Mabel." The old woman said nothing. "Do you need something?"

No answer.

"Do you need to use the bed pan?"

Still no answer.

"Are you hungry?"

The wrinkled woman just stared.

Suddenly, Rose got the picture. "Would you like me to read to you?" Mabel's lips twitched in a smile. "Alright," she said. "I'll start from the beginning." She moved herself closer to Mabel, cleared her throat, and began. " 'Once on a dark winter's day, when the yellow fog hung so thick and heavy in the streets of London that the lamps were lighted and the shop windows blazed with gas as they do at night, an odd looking little girl sat in a cab with her father and was driven rather slowly through the big thoroughfares..."