Blank Canvas

●Chapter 22●

I was standing in my kitchen with a conflicted expression on my face. Kris had told me to apologize to Atlas so I came up with an idea to bake him some cupcakes. 'Because who could say no to cupcakes?' However, as I stared at all the ingredients on the counter, I wanted to slap myself really hard.

"How am I going to bake cupcakes when I can't even hold a knife without slashing myself?" I mumbled to myself.

I couldn't cook even if my life depended on it. I had discreetly asked my mom how to apologize to someone in an interesting way. She had answered that food always lures everyone in. Although, she sure did fire a lot of questions but I dodged them all.

My mom had even offered to help me but I just shook my head. She was horrified, to say the least because I'm the worst when it comes to cooking or baking.

'I should have just taken her up on the offer. Now, I regret it.'

Sighing in distress, I stared at my phone that was screening the chocolate cupcake recipe.

I had come back home from my art gallery early to think about how to apologize to Atlas. The only steam I could blow is from people's ears and nose with my fantastic cooking skills. That right there is pretty explanatory.

After three long and agonizing hours of torturous baking, I blew out a breath of relief. I stared at my cupcakes and wanted to bang my head against a wall.

These hours of baking was not easy for someone who's always strayed from actually making something in the kitchen.

It was honestly a mess by the time I was done with everything. I wasted around seven to eight eggs because I couldn't break them properly. The recipe instructed me to put a half teaspoon of vanilla essence but my hand accidentally hit something and ended up making a blunder. The dough I had prepared was full of lumps because I didn't use the sift for all the dry ingredients so I had to make another one. And lastly, since I didn't wait to demould the cupcakes, I removed them immediately before the assigned time.

When it was time to garnish the cupcakes, I had literally insulted the essence of garnishment. I tried making a smiley emoticon on one of the cupcakes but it was all over the place. It looked shabby instead of mouth-watering. But I don't think icing matters much because at the end of the day we'd end up eating it. Right?

"They look so bad," I whined to myself. I heard footsteps approaching and soon saw Bert and my mom standing at the kitchen doorway. "Hey, mom. Hey, Bert."

"They are the..." mom trailed off, pursing her lips.

"Ugliest cupcakes I've ever seen," Bert finished, making disgusted faces at my hard work. "They don't even look like cupcakes. They look more of like a crocodile swimming in the white snow."

"Shut up! They are not half as bad as they look like... maybe. I guess." I frowned and looked at my baked cupcakes. I blinked back the tears of frustration.

"Bert. Stop being so rude to your sister. She's at least tried, right? And trying is the most important step. Can you bake those?" My mom scolded him with a stern and disapproving look.

Bert grunted and entered the kitchen to have a closer inspection of my cupcakes. "I'll taste one." Bert took a bite out of one of my cupcakes and blinked several times. "It's...-"

"Bad I know. I knew it was the worst idea but-"

"-good," Bert mumbled, raising an eyebrow at me.

"What?" I stood there with my mouth wide open. "Are you serious?"

"Aria," my mom spoke and stood beside me. She put a consoling hand on my shoulder and continued, "I think the icing is not too clean. But that doesn't matter. What matters is you've spent hours on this thing just to make it perfect. You never cook and you're baking these just to apologize to someone which is a big deal and that person should know. They should feel lucky. You didn't initiate this when you had to apologize to Kris, me or anyone for that matter, which is saying something."