Part One-Lyla's Troubles

She ran, the tears streaming down her cheeks, her hair whipping her cheeks as she stumbled blindly.

Samuel's cruel words echoed through her head;

"Don't be so selfish, Lyla Rose!'

She'd only acted from kindness, the rose she now clutched was meant for him, he'd only thrown it back at her.

"Vain, selfish brat!"

She didn't care about him though. Not after today...

But that dull, throbbing ache still remained...

Entering her house, Lyla Rose tiptoed to her mothers' room, placing the pale pink rose in a vase by her mothers' bed.

Her mother called them 'Lyla's Roses', the pale pink the same colour as her cheeks, the colour she suited best.

It was those roses she'd also been named after, Lyla, an ordinary name, until her mother had gazed upon the roses swaying in the gentle breeze...

Lyla Rose.

Her own unique name...

She gazed at her mother.

She was sleeping so peacefully, she worked so hard to help them.

It wasn't easy, just Lyla Rose and her mother.

Lyla Rose sometimes felt guilty, felt she didn't help...

And she shouldn't talk to her mother about her troubles-it would be vain, of no importance to her struggling mother...

Lyla Rose heads outside, into the garden with its' small, sheltered hammock with the rose trellises around it.

Her haven, her bedroom, her home.

Pulling the light blanket over her, Lyla Rose lay back, watching the sky through the glass above her, inhaling the scent of the ross that twined their way around the trellises that surrounded her.

Drifting into sleep, Lyla Rose dreamed, that Samuel still loved her, that he had accepted the rose...

The dream faded, returning again.

She remembered the scene vividly, too vividly...