“Mom, read me a bed time story.” I plead as my mother tucked me in my bed.

“As you wish, dear. Which one would you like me to read?” She asked as she scanned my bookshelf full of fairytale stories.

“Cinderella” I said cheerfully. She picked out the said book and sat down on the chair next to my bed.

“Okay. Are you ready?” I motioned her to wait. I pulled out my teddy bear from under my big pink pillow and hugged it tightly.

“I’m ready.” I grinned and she smiled back at me. And with her soft, melodic voice she started reading out loud.

“Once upon a time in a faraway land there was a young girl named Cinderella. When she was a child…”

The ringing of my alarm clock woke me up from my beautiful dream. It was the last time she had read to me before she died in an accident.

I was only 5 when my mother passed away. She was hit by a car and died while she was drove to the hospital.

I loved my mother but I could barely remember how she looked. I did know that she was French and I probably inherited my blonde hair and blue eyes from her. We didn’t have any picture of her, it almost felt like she had never existed.

My father remarried when I was 8 to a rich, beautiful Korean woman. It seemed like she was originally my father’s fiancé but he got my mother pregnant and he had had to marry mother. So I was an unwanted child.

My father ignored me since I was born, my mother was the only person beside me. My stepmother, well, she wasn’t a bad person. She gave me food, money and stuff I needed to live a normal life but she couldn’t love me. How could anyone love another woman’s child?  I accepted it.

As time passed by I noticed that I began to reread more and more of my favorite fairytales, like Cinderella, Snow White, and The Little Mermaid. As I grew up I held onto them more and more to the point I knew it wasn’t healthy.

But I missed my mother so much. The warmth and the love she gave me, I missed it more day by day. Re