I'm not an easy person, but I do love fiercely. I wouldn't say that I am a good person because I am not entirely sure how to even define that. Every once in a while I believe in my core that I am above following the rules, as I have learned the loop holes that exists within exceptions for specific situations that often apply to me. Because people understand each other by speaking, and in speaking we define new rules. I learned to talk my way out of most situations. This is why sometimes I do feel annoyed by people who don't communicate - people who forget their own worth and accept the the default norms instead of challenging what is vs what could be. I see them as pawns in a way - small entities that aren't strong enough to realize the board is wider than the grid square in front of them. I am not like them. I think of the grid, and and do wonder why is the queen the only piece that can move freely. This is why I sometimes act as if I was superior, the part of me that is always searching - always paying attention - can't help but think the alternative is a limited way to live.

I know I can be annoying too, but before you flag me as foreign, let me tell you that I learned this from my mother. I am part of a system that works at the spine of our ability to think - to interpret, to challenge and to ask for more - in spite of it questionbly being crooked. I have never been able to answer the question 'how much is enogh' because the answer depends on the huger satiated - and the hunger I find to satisfy is not only mine. I think its also my mothers, my sisters, its the hunger of the system that while liberating also weights in my shoulders waiting to eat me alive because the only thing it wants is my entire life. Maybe if I live long enough I will be able to satisfy it. But also maybe not. I dont know when the system ends and I begin, and therefore I also do not know if this ambition if mine or theirs. Its just there, staring at me, in the form of expectations, as I try to hold the world together before it falls and shatters in a beautiful cacophony of dangerous blood thirsty glass.

My mother and sister preferred me sharp and presumptuous: A clever bold predator ready to tear apart any obstacle or rival that could stand between my family and its pride - because that is what fed our souls: pride. The one master card we could use to armor ourselves out of any situation with the highest held head. While you may have found me intimidating, Dri - my younger sister - found me protective, and my mother submissive. How could she not. I was there to server her. I suppose that was also one of the reasons why Cinderella was such a wrench in the gears: she never complied to our rules. She never followed the system. She was not a pawn. I noticed, and I think the prince did too. This is why I smile. A pawn that does not behave like a pawn is something I can respect. I like minds like mine, that question, regardless of where they come from - regardless of whether my mom can see it or not - that the part of me that is my peace is not so different than the part of her that is her peace. I learned be unapologetic and quick-witted, as she learned to be discrete and respectfully calculative. I played offence, while she played defence - but we both played, and that's what matters.

It made sense though. Cinderella and I didn't share a biological mother, but both to a degree did expect us to be different - to be special in our own little way, to be better - and did expect us to see the entire grid. Cindy lived by the words of her dead bed's: "Dear child, be good and pious, and God will always take care of you, and I will look down upon you from heaven, and will be with you." I used to smirk and question it. If her mother was with her, then that was certainly a sad way to be so, but I could not really think beyond that. Who was I to judge it. I would like to think that being good mattered, but what did good even mean. It also seemed a rather helpless sentence when taking into account the situation her death unravelled. Cinderellas mother would indeed be able to observe from the beyond - except she would do so powerless. She would hold VIP sits from heaven to witness how her daughter's life went completely disarray as she felt victim to my mother. I couldn't help but wonder what would have been of me if I had been in her situation.

If you've been paying attention, you'll recall I called myself submissive. I dare now to share with you the question that haunted me for years: Who is the true evil? The one who does the damage or the one who orders it? Is the one who follows the system - even though they are aware that it hurts another person - any better for knowing it, or does that make them worse? The truth is, I actually thought Cindy's mother's words were nice, but not made for surviving, as they were soft. I had neither seen 'soft' survive before, nor had I seen it being encouraged by my mother.

However, in spite of the fact that I didn't know it then, a part of me did desperately want to be a part of a different system - a less painful dynamic where 'soft' was allowed. It sure sounded better than the rotten afternoons I drank tea to as I perfected the art of playing the flute, even though I would never be a musician. It was both, a refinement and a distraction. It made me look better to outsider eyes, and gave me something to do to fill the hours and hours on end that I had at my disposal.

In a way, I was a prisoner with an illusion of freedom. The life ahead of me was written from the start with a pen that wasn't mine: I would one day marry a man from a good family who would continue to give me the illusion of freedom I grew up with. He would go to the world and do all the worthwhile things I was not expected to do for being a woman, while I, on the other hand, would have kids, and play the flute.

I would teach my kids to be just as refined as my mother taught me to be, and I would tell them that, if they are lucky and play their cards right, they may even one day get to live in a cage as comfortable as ours. It is with this bitter thoughts in my head that I look sideways at you, like I also did then, and I secretly thank you, Cinderella, for being that wrench in the gears - for proving that your mother's nice words were indeed made to survive. It was the first glimpse I had at 'soft' being allowed.

Now I look at you, dear reader, and I warn you that if you are to continue following the story that I am about to tell you, you should not expect me to be nice. It is, after all, your responsibility to pick you own reads - and this, which you grabbed, is rather an anti-hero novel.