Madeleine X Espresso Cookie

Pro

"Mommy?"

"Yes, darling?"

"What does my symbol mean again?"

"Yours means that you are dark and mysterious. You are ace and aro. You won't feel much, and what you do feel, you will show to no-one."

"But... What if I don't want to be dark and mi-steer-ius?"

"Essy, don't say such a thing! You have to stick to your mark! And if you really don't feel that way, then I guess you would have to pretend."

"O-oh... Goodnight Mommy..."

"Night sweetie."

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If you were to ask young me what I wanted to be when I grew up, I would start jumping around, and I would respond with a very enthusiastic answer, usually following the lines of "I wanna be a princess! Or a popstar! Or a stay-at-home mom!" You get the gist. In short, I wanted to be feminine. But my mark clearly disagreed. It told me that I was going to be an emo kid, basically. It said nothing about colorful dresses and sparkling makeup. So, I had to give up on my dreams, and become a living image of darkness. I wore purely dark brown and black, and I styled my hair in a way that it hid one of my eyes. I also covered up my naturally amber eyes with contacts.

It sucked living like that. Living a lie. My parents didn't even care. Well, my mom didn't at least. My dad left when I was very young, and my mother wouldn't tell me anything about him. She always made up some excuse to talk about something else, or simply told me that she didn't want to talk about it. I respected her, so I didn't ask further questions, but it still left me curious.

Once in the fifth grade, when I had still only been homeschooled (other than in pre-school), my mother told me that my father had been a great man, but he had gone against his symbol, and therefore she couldn't be seen with him. I didn't understand at that point how much following your symbol meant. I sure learned...

I only stopped homeschooling in 9th grade, when my mother said I was mature enough to go, but it might've been better if I stayed learning at home. At school, I began to get bullied, because of my symbol. People said that I was a loser with no friends, and that I was that bratty emo kid that no-one liked, as well as a lot of other bad names that I am too tired to list.

That was another thing about school. Because I was given so much homework, I began to have less and less time to sleep, which in turn made me more tired, which meant I spent more time on homework and even less time on sleep. This cycle was seemingly endless, and I got tired of it after a point, so I found a substitute for sleep that was much faster. Coffee. It actually went suprisingly well with the persona that I had created for myself. That wasn't really a good thing though.

I became addicted to coffee, and soon enough I was getting no sleep whatsoever, instead just always carrying around my coffee, drinking it whenever I felt tired. I knew it was a problem, but I couldn't stop. I began to grow more tired all the time, which in turn threw my grades off even more, and left my head spinning in class. It was annoying, but I didn't see any way of stopping it, and no-one else noticed, as I was just that emo kid in the back of their class.

I slowly worked into a routine, even if an unhealthy one. In the morning, I would shower, change clothes, eat the bare minimum to keep myself alive, then chug a bunch of coffee and head to the bus stop. Somewhere along that I would also get myself several flasks of coffee, that I put in my backpack. When the bus pulled up, I would go and sit in the very back, not interacting with anyone or anything. Then we would get to school. I would go to my first few classes, following the rhythm of sitting in the back, drinking coffee, and zoning out the whole time. After that there would be lunch. During lunch, I would go sit behind the building, resting on the brick wall that separated the school from the rest of society. I would yet again eat the bare minimum, drink a lot of coffee, and check to make sure I had finished all of my homework. After lunch I would use the same strategy as before for my next classes, then I would get home, do homework, study, and drink coffee until the next day.

This schedule had no room for any fun, friends, or treats. Which perfectly matched what I was supposed to be. It was hard for me at first, but as I got into it I relaxed, and even if it was unhealthy, it was life.

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I promise you, I will make bigger chapters, but this is the prologue, and I really just wanted it to be an overview of Espresso's life.

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