Here is the thing.
I can’t be a girly girl. I can’t do girl-talk, flash my eyelashes, flirt or pretend to be a damsel in distress. I don’t change the tone of my voice when I speak to boys or try to attract their attention. I don’t look intensely at people for no reason or use a mysterious smile when I am asking somebody for a favor. And I certainly don’t appear to be shy and reserved and sensitive so that people would instinctively want to protect me.
Maybe that is why I don’t get along with Rosie. We don’t have the same frame of mind or the same towards the world. But I think what annoys me the most is how she always manages to get what she wants. From Alex and Max that is. Because around me she seems to be on her guard, careful of what she says or how she acts.
The difficult part is that we are now sharing a room, so I can’t really avoid her as much as I would like to. And she has so many questions about how to dress up and how to do her make up and about Virtus and about our life before meeting her… urghhhh. Sometimes I just need a little peace and quiet, you know.
She is probably trying to be friends. But I can’t forget how she manipulated Alex and Max and dragged us to this whole ‘cosmographer business’ that almost cost both our freedom and lives. Plus, as I’ve said before, I don’t really know what lies underneath the surface and I can’t trust somebody whose true intentions may be hidden from me.
Also, sometimes, I get the impression that she looks down on me. Like the day when I undressed in front of her, to get ready for bed, and she saw my tattoos for the first time.
“My goodness!”, she exclaimed shocked and drew close to me so she can have a better look. She run her fingertips over the designs. “Did you do that?”
“Nope. I chose the designs and had somebody else do it. A professional artist.”
“Are they permanent?”
“Yes”.
“Why?”
Her expression was a mixture of curiosity, fascination and disgust.
“Why what?”
“Why would you want to mark your beautiful skin for life?”
“Because I wanted to”.
“And what Alex and Max said? Did they agree to it?”
“I didn’t ask for their permission”, I replied coldly, pulling my pajama top on. “Plus, they have tattoos too”.
“Oh, do they?”
She smiled to herself and turned away from me.
Because of course it was cool for boys to have tattoos, right? But, I had just marked my beautiful skin for life.
OK, I must admit that having being born in the 1600s can mark your perspective for life…