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CHAPTER ONE not your angel
⋆*✧･ﾟ:⋆*･ﾟ:*✧･ﾟ:*✧･ﾟ:
MOTHERS ARE LIKE robots, except instead of being programmed to follow orders, they're programmed to love their children as soon as they first lay eyes on them. This makes sense; they've been harbouring them for nine months, which is bound to let you get attached to anything. And this instinctual love is what allows the infant to get through its first years, because without its parents, it would never survive. And usually—especially in this day and age—the mother does not abandon her offspring even after they develop enough cognitive functions in order to succeed in this world. This bond mother and child have formed—developed from those crucial nine months in which she houses the infant in her womb—is stronger than any natural instinct.
Which was why Nadine was wondering if the fact that she hadn't spent nine months curled in the uterus of Louise Vidal had something to do with her mother's subsequent hollowness. She'd heard enough stories of the day she was born—right in her favourite restaurant—to know that her birth was definitely out of the ordinary, and that this crucial bond nearly every child had with their mother hadn't existed.
Louise thought that Nadine Vidal was the devil's spawn. She loved her, but she also despised her, something that was quite clear by the fact that she fled every single time Nadine did something impossible. She'd lock herself in her room every time her daughter made rainbows swirl on the ceiling, cry herself to sleep every time her miracle girl made bubbles float around the room. Nadine couldn't control her random bursts of illusions, but no matter how many times she told her mother that, Louise Vidal claimed she could certainly do so if she wanted, and that, actually, Nadine was making her shadow move to spite her. She never lay hands on her daughter, but the sheer amount of disappointment Nadine was subjected to every time she got out of control felt like being slapped anyway. A backhand that could send her flying into the wall.
"I love you, my angel," she'd often say, on the days where Nadine managed to shove her compulsive tendencies deep inside her. Those days were the worst, because she felt like a bottle of soda shaken to the max. On those days, Nadine Vidal was a volcano, and she was ready to explode and spew her magma. But they were also the best days, because on those days Nadine was sure she was loved.
Now, at nearly thirty years old, Nadine wasn't so naïve. She knew her mother was scared of her, which made the next part of the story of her birth—where Louise had stood up to Reginald Hargreeves, the eccentric billionaire who'd pleaded with her to let him purchase Nadine and take her for his own—sour. Of course, back then, Louise hadn't known she would be getting a child who could make people see things that weren't really there, but after all the stories Nadine used to hear about how much Louise had wanted a child, learning she wasn't the baby her mother had wanted stung.
Which made work really awkward.
Nadine worked in her father's hotel, La Petite Montagne. It provided her with a steady job and housing, a pool, and as many drinks as she wanted. The only downside was that Louise was there all the time. Oftentimes, when Nadine was working at the bar or eating breakfast, her mother would flaunter in, twisting the pearls she always kept around her neck and clicking her four-inch high heels. Nadine would always go and greet her, and sometimes Louise would act like she'd missed her, but other times she'd barely even speak to her. It was like Russian Roulette. Cock a gun and place it to your head. Hope the shot doesn't blow your brains out.
