Sweaty Palms

PROLOGUE:MIA

PIC OF MIA UP TOP!

Prologue

MIA

Mia sat with her head in her hands as she stared down at the floor. She was frustrated. All the work had piled up on her and she made so many mistakes that she didn't know how to fix, and she was tired after staying up until 12 the night before.

"Ugh," she groaned and tried to get up; banging her head on the table she was under in the process. Now to add to the aching joints and sleep-deprived eyes, now she had a throbbing headache. She was so thirsty at the moment, but she couldn't go outside to get something since she was grounded.

It was about a week now and she was so hungry she thought she'd die. Right at that moment, she heard the door to her room open. Through blurry eyes, she looked up and saw a small figure come towards her. The person had a tray in their hand as they approached her.

"Mia!" It was Alana, her personal maid. Mia looked up as her friend spooned some warm porridge into her mouth. It was delicious, and Mia, with the help of her friend/maid, was able to sit up and eat for the first time in five days.

After being fed, she felt as if she had a little more energy than before.

"Mia," Alana said after she had eaten, "are you feeling OK now? Did you finish the work?"

Mia weakly shook her head, "No, and it doesn't seem I will be finished anytime soon."

Her friend let out a small sympathetic sigh. "The Madame and Monsieur have gone out to dinner. I mean how could they do that and leave their own daughter to starve for a whole week! That is utter cruelty. I mean, why did they even bother to have a child if they were going to treat her this way?"

At that Mia felt tears wet her eyes. They were not her real parents. They adopted her from France and came to America with her. If only anyone knew that.

"I'm cold..." she said and her best friend ran for some sheets and wrapped it around her shivering body.

"It's OK, I'm here now." Her friend told her and hugged her close to her. The tears that had gathered in Mia's eyes were falling down her cheeks. She was tired of it all. All the pain her adoptive parents had bestowed upon her was too much. She worked too hard to gain nothing but pain.

The two girls didn't know how long they were like that for, but then they heard a loud bang on the door and Mia's mother walked in.

She began to yell at the girls in French.

"Did you finish the assignments?" She bellowed at a frightened Mia.

"No Madame." She told her mother meekly.

"After so long?!"

"No Madame."

"I gave you five days! FIVE! If you don't finish it by tomorrow then you can just count it as your passport to your grandmother's house!"

Immediately her eyes widened in fear. "No..." she pleaded in a soft voice. She hated it there. Her grandmother would make her do all sorts of work along with the ones she did now. If anything, her grandmother was worse than living in this house, since she never even let her have the slightest bit of time to herself. She would beat her even at her age of sixteen. She would let her sleep in the basement if she didn't hand in projects early. She would make her work at the company every single day and overtime too. She hated it there.

"Well, if you have a problem with that, just finish that work by tomorrow evening and I will be back then." With that being said she walked towards the two and dragged Alana by her hair out of the room and shut the door behind her.

Mia, sat there for a while, before crawling wearily over to her computer.

Frankly, it was office work. Tasks that are past the university level and in a different language too. Her mother expected her to do all this stuff in one night. She had to do it though. It was better she endured this than her grandmother's scary house.

So with her hands dripping with sweat, she began to type once again.