To avoid ridicule, her parents, Clive and Anita, moved to Sunset Valley where no one knew them or their past.
They were determined to make her life as full as her smile when she was tickled.
To give her daughter a sense of solidarity, Anita dyed her brown hair the exact same shade of green as Roxanne's. As much as Clive missed her darker hair, he was grateful he had a wife who would make any sacrifice for their children.
Clive and Anita longed for another child, but their efforts to conceive never paid off. Neither of them blamed the other for their lack of children. Instead, they took it in stride, devoting their love to each other and their daughter.
(Author's note: I forgot to turn off hide headline effects. I didn't know how to use it until later)
Anita often looked in her daughter's golden eyes, the same as Clive's, and hoped and prayed that they would never see their shared green hair as weird. Most everyone in town assumed that Roxanne had inherited the hair from Anita, rather than spontaneously developing it in the womb. That was exactly what Anita hoped for. She didn't like having the blame shifted to her for a genetic quirk, but she would bear it if it meant Roxanne never would.
Roxanne was a fairly laid back child. She rarely complained when her food was placed on her high-chair tray.
Her favorite toy was Old Dusty, or as Roxanne would often say, clapping her hands and pointing out the window or door, "Dudee!" She loved to sit on his back, and she spent hours riding him...
...even if it was bedtime and this was the last ride.
The long hallway down the house proved to be a great place to teach Roxanne to walk. She stumbled toward her father, smiling as she realized how to shift her weight from one of her feet to the other. She toddled into his arms, and he gave a cheer as he hoisted her to the lights while Anita wiped the tears off her face.
Her little girl had grown up so fast.
Just before Roxanne began school, Clive got a hefty promotion at work, one that enabled him and Anita to finally purchase their dream home. They had seen it long ago when they first moved to Sunset Valley with Roxanne. They both agreed as they pulled into their starter home that they would one day move into that house.
The cab pulled up to the side of the Gregory's new home. Roxanne's eyes widened as she pressed her fingers to the glass. "It's huge!" she gushed to her mother.
Roxanne ran to her new room, squealing with joy at all the new toys she had in her bigger bedroom. She loved it, even if the toy box was pink instead of green.
Roxanne often played Space-Explorer over in the abandoned fire station just across the street...
...or Extreme-Couch Driver when her mother grounded her for playing in a building she wasn't supposed to be in.
Roxanne loved going to school. There were exciting things to learn and new people to meet that she could invite over for parties. Anita had done her best to assure her daughter that her green hair was nothing to be ashamed of, but she spied Roxanne tucking her hair over her ear as she climbed on the bus. At school, a few kids gave her weird looks, but no one ever said anything. Once Roxanne proved she wasn't an alien or some other supernatural creature, Roxanne found it easy to make friends.
One day, as she left school, she spied the new boy walking down the steps. In the artificial lighting of the building, Roxanne had assumed his hair was black, like her father's. As the sunlight hit it, she saw that it was dark blue, fading into the blackness. She had never met someone with hair like hers, and her mind latched onto him.
"Who is that?" Roxanne asked herself. She was so used to talking to herself at home that she forgot that others could hear her when she spoke aloud.
"Him?" Bella Bachelor replied, looking at the boy's retreating back. "That's Donovan Whitefall. They moved into that house with the private beach. But I doubt you could get in there."
Roxanne wasn't one to let something she wanted to get away so easily. Next time Donovan went home, Roxanne was coming with him.
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