I wish I had never spoke to her. When she asked me, “Is there anyone you like?” I should’ve ignored her, yet like the fool I was responding with, “Yeah, I do. Actually it’s someone you know very well.” I never meant for her to think I had every liked her, yet a simple misunderstanding led to something so nauseating to think of. She became obsessed, maddened with the idea that I “liked” her. She began to follow me, write letters to me, steal my clothing. She had left me snippets of her red curly hair. Theo had thought of it as a cute little romance, but he failed to see my disinterest in her. Plus, I could never fall for a noblewoman as herself when I had Theo. When I left the academy to pursue a life of silence, she lurked behind. One day she was bold enough, she had drugged my soup at a tavern and carried me off to a room. Sh-she…had done indescribable things to me. She knew I wouldn’t tell a soul, no one would believe the words of a commoner.

Yet after that day I wouldn’t hear of her until nine months later. A man came knocking to my door, a basket covered in covers and letter in hand. Swiftly he gave them to me and hurried off before I could speak a word. A babies cry echoed through the air, I lifted the blanket. A small infant, no more than a week old, cried out with the same red curled hair. Elizabeth.

How could she?

I placed the basket upon my dining table and opened the letter with a noble seal.

_“My dear Oliver, as I write my final letter to you, do know that I am dying. Childbirth is no easy feat and I’m afraid our time together will come soon to an end. But as a gift of our love, here is the child I beared. Our child. Father doesn’t approve of her and threatened to have her killed on the spot, but I convinced him otherwise. Oliver, I love you enteranly and will always be with you. I know you hate me, and that had always saddens me, but at the very least compromise for this child. As my final words, I regret nothing.” _Upon finishing the letter, I rushed to the sink and hurled my breakfast. The audacity of that woman, even after death coming to haunt me. I look over at the screaming child, a spitting image of her. What am I supposed to do? Raise it? How can I raise a child when my own mother didn’t care for me one bit?