Rosewater, chapter one

Rose - the curious concept of colours


Helpful note number one: I will be alternating POVs between Frank's and Rose's for this story. The first chapter is Rose's point of view.

Helpful note number two: Rose is no longer a baby. This is like fifteen years after the epilogue of ‘Disgusting’. Just so there’s no confusion. She’s not a baby.

Now, read on, my skittles.


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I stared at my knees in the bath. I didn’t want to look at any other part of myself.

This wasn’t just the normal teen angst, normal self esteem issues. I really was different. My parents had noticed, and they had never seen anything like it either.

Ordinarily, when a white touched a black, they would leave a mark. Of course they would. It was a chemical reaction, something we’d learned in school. Just something to do with the pigments in our skin being really strong and the cells being almost contagious, temporarily changing the colour of any different skin colours you’re in contact with. The key word here being ‘temporarily’.

I was grey.

Everyone in the world was either black or white, and I was grey.

Even children born from mixed race couples just inherited the dominant gene and only took the colour of one of their parents. I was different. There was nobody like me.

I didn’t used to be grey. I wasn’t born like this. I was born black, like my mother, like my brother (now my adoptive father). But having a white dad (my adoptive father’s husband) as well as a black dad seemed to be affecting me differently to most mixed race families. Having white friends was different for me than for other blacks. They left marks on my skin, of course, but they never really went away. They faded to the point of reaching a dull grey, but then never left.

I stared at my knees. They were the only part of me above water other than my head, and they looked darker in comparison to the rest of my legs which were blurred by the water. I looked almost pure black.

I wished I was normal. I wished I was like everyone else. Dad kept saying I was special, that I was exceptional and extraordinary, not weird. But every parent says that their little girl is special rather than weird, even if they grow up, and even if they’re not special in the slightest.

Papa said that everyone’s weird, and maybe I was a little weirder than some people… but there was no need to worry. He was weirder than everyone else at my age, and his weirdness and being different helped him do amazing things– and most importantly, meet dad.

I liked papa’s approach better. I knew I was weird and there was no point fighting against that, but maybe being weird was a good thing.

Still, I wished I would just fit in with everyone else. I didn’t want everyone to draw attention to the fact that I was different. I didn’t want to have to be ‘that weird grey girl’ forever.

“Maybe someday you’ll be that amazing grey girl that changed the world, and you’ll be thankful that you’re different,” papa said one day when I voiced my worries. “Look, Rose. When I was your age, I had no friends, the whole country thought blacks were evil, and I was completely in love with a black who didn’t even love me back! I thought that everything was just going to keep getting worse. I thought that my life was just going to be crappy forever.”

“Rose, sweetheart,” dad said. “I know that everything seems horrible right now, but I promise it will get better. You’re awesome, okay? And being a different colour to everyone else just contributes to this awesomeness. Trust me. It makes you special.”

“It makes you weird,” papa said with a grin.

Dad elbowed him. “Frank, don’t say that. You’ll upset her.”

“No, no,” I said. Papa’s whole thing about weird being good always cheered me up. “It’s good. It’s positive.”

“Positive?” dad asked sceptically. “Alright, whatever you say, Rose. You know, sometimes it feels like you’ve got more of him in you than me.” He glanced at papa, one eyebrow raised.

Papa rolled his eyes. “Of course she has, she’s absorbed all of my awesome through osmosis or something and there’s so much of it, it leaves a mark forever. A mark of awesome.”

“You’re so weird,” dad said, shaking his head.

“You know you love it, babe,” papa said, tilting his hip to the side.

Dad giggled. “Course I do. I love you.”

“Love you too,” papa laughed.

They almost kissed, almost but I stuck my hand between their faces. “Child in the room,” I said firmly. “No snogging.”

“‘Snogging’. You’re so English,” papa said, amused smile on his face.

I’d grown up around people speaking with British accents all my life, but my parents still had their New Jersey accents. “Fine. No making out, or whatever it is.”

“Aw. Fine.”

“You can do it when I leave.”

“But that’s ages.”

“You should have done all your bloody canoodling while I was at school.”

“But–”

“You could just wait until I go upstairs. I have music on so loud, you can do whatever you want. Within reason. Keep it legal.”

“We’ll try,” papa said.

My parents were definitely weird, and it was definitely a good thing. Maybe someday my weirdness would serve me well.


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I’m sorry, my chapter endings are so fucking cheesy. This whole first chapter is a bit crap and a bit short, to be honest, but I promise, in chapter two it gets good. Or at least better. And longer.

Frank and Gerard get covered in paint :P

xoxo