Tainted love

Millie: chapter 1

(Then)
⚘ Millie ⚘

I never questioned how lucky I was for my life. I have everything I possibly desire. What more could I possibly ask for?: I have amazing parents, a comforting home, and a scholarship to a private high school for book writing.

The fast-paced life is all I've ever known. My mother was an amazing book writer for many years before she hit her burn out in her late thirties. I like to say I inherited her talent. My parents put me into school as soon as I was able to comprehend little things.

Thankfully for them, I took my dad's intelligence. He went to an Ivy League school; Princeton University, which is extremely impressive. I've always looked up to my dad in that sense. Hopefully by the time I graduate, everything works out the way I've always planned.

My elbows rested perfectly on my thighs as I stared blankly at the piece of art in front of me. I'm not sure what to think of it; a white shed, with purple lilacs surrounding it, placed perfectly on the canvas. It was my shed, the shed I was sitting in at this very moment. It was perfect, perfectly painted, perfectly portrayed, but it was missing such a huge factor.

There are so many things that big thing could be, but my brain is scrambled like a puzzle that I messed up with my hands. I wiped the almost dry paint from my hands onto my apron; which by now was already decorated by the other dried paint.

I take In the painting one last time before placing it onto the hook my dad hammered in just hours before. My dad built this shed when I was just starting middle school. For the longest time I didn't speak to anyone, so art was my way of speaking, or letting people understand what was making me who I was. I heard a light knock on the door, not looking away from my painting. They opened and closed the door behind them as they stepped in.

"Millie, it's beautiful." my mother's light voice says, coming up beside me, her finger lightly brushing over the painting. "It's missing something. You know? I can't put my finger on it, but I know it needs something." I explained, turning away and shoving the paints with the rest up on the unorganized shelf. "It's beautiful, try and see it from every angle." she explains, as I give her a confused look taking my apron off.

Walking over to the door again, she says, "Everyone has different sides of them that's hidden from the world. Maybe it's your turn to unpile the missing piece." I nod at her words, as she opens the door. "Dad burnt the chicken." she blurts out, but before I could even laugh, she shuts the door and leaves me alone in thought.

My mother's words rang through my head until I finally made it to the kitchen. 'Unpile the missing piece.' She has a reasonable meaning to what she said, but I don't fully know how I can accomplish what she said. I don't know how to unpile what I can't see. How does someone unpile something they didn't hide? This is my art and my shed, so what's hiding that I can't see. I shake the feeling and thought out of my head.

As I walk into the kitchen, I see my mom and dad standing near the oven. "Jim, you're going to kill us all with a house fire someday!" My mom shakes her head, flinging around a hand cloth to move the smoke out of the house. "I'm a good cook, I told you, it's the oven, not me." He defends himself, throwing the chicken away in the trash.

The kitchen smelt more like smoke than it did the chicken. Which makes sense because my dad was never good at cooking, that was more of mom's strong suit. We've always tried to be as supportive as possible, but sometimes it gets out of hand. We've lost too many chickens to my dad's outrageous cooking.