Amour

Début

2 WEEKS EARLIER

Fiona's gentle fingers skimmed the soft, delicate petals of the daisy she gripped lightly in her hand. She lifted it up to her nose and let the sweet smell warm her body and soul.

She looked around the vibrant plain that surrounded her house and sighed. Glancing at the spacious, glistening mansion, she wondered if she should wander back inside.

But Fiona didn't like inside.

Everything was wrong inside. Sure, her parents had truckloads of money, providing Fiona with everything she could possibly desire, but she liked getting dirty. Her parents could never stop her from enjoying that, even though they didn't as much. People admired Fiona's thick, curly red hair, though she liked to keep it untamed, and her pale face and thin nose and high cheekbones completed her label of "rich parents' daughter." But Fiona wished she could run from home and live in the outdoors. Forever.

"Fiona!" her mother, Remi, called. Remi's raspy voice barked for her to come inside. Fiona sighed, kissed the daisy in her grasp, and lay it back in the grass. She stumbled about as she dashed to the back door of her house. Gasping for breath, she looked Remi in the eyes with question as Remi covered her mouth, gasping, looking as if she might cry. "Fiona! You are hideous!"
"Mother!"
"No, darling, I mean your dress! What have you done?"
"Mother, I was frolicking. Playing in the yard."
"But I forbaid you from the yard."
"Why?"
"Because it makes you dirty! To your room!"

Fiona sauntered sadly to her room. Up the winding glass staircase, where a small crack remained. Fiona thought back to the time when she had tripped while running upstairs at the age of three. Remi was concerned, but her father, Damon, was furious. Such an expensive staircase, he said. Clumsy three year old mess, he said. He didn't acknowledge the knot on Fiona's head.

Fiona didn't enjoy Damon, and Damon didn't enjoy Fiona. Damon was always calling her names and scowling at her. The only time he was nice were when his business partners came by. She wished his business partners came by more often.

She continued her journey up the steps, and into her room, a big, spacious area the size of two school classrooms. Her bed sat on the right side, with a lacy canopy, and all the gifts her parents had gotten her were placed neatly around the room. She looked back and forth, considered changing into her silk pajamas, and ran back to the winding staircase all the way up to the third floor, which was where Fiona could access the Attic

The Attic was Fiona's makeshift room. Her parents didn't know it existed, and she intended to keep it that way. Fiona entered through a hidden passage at the top of the staircase, which led to a hallway, including Remi's yoga and sewing room and Damon's study. Fiona and her parents' rooms were on the second level.

Fiona crept into Remi's yoga room, standing on the very last square of carpet by the upper righthand corner. She knocked out a piece of wall, where she had built a tunnel leading up to the Attic. Once she had finally crawled up, she took off her dirty dress and slipped on her white shirt and overalls, a hidden outfit she had that was more preferred over her dresses.

The Attic was cramped, nothing fancy, just an extra mattress with a pillow and crumpled up blankets where she slept, and a small white bookshelf right next to her bed filled with her favorite books. Remi and Damon found it odd that Fiona enjoyed books; they said that she should focus more on being proper. Fiona was not, and no way would she ever be, proper.

Fiona kept an old pink toy box with her favorite comfortable clothes, including her pair of overalls and white t-shirt. The paint had partly chipped away, and smiling, pretty perfect princess stickers were pasted onto the front. And finally, her stash of candy, which she liked to binge on every once in a while.

Fiona grabbed one of her favorite books, Heidi, and began rereading it for the tenth time. She grabbed some butterscotches from the drawer in the little wooden nightstand next to her mattress. Popping a rich butterscotch in her mouth, she got comfortable on her mattress and began to read.

She read all the way until supper, in which a white bonnet and some brunnett hair poked through the hole in the floor in which Fiona used to access the Attic. Grunting followed. Fiona always got worried when this happened, but once she heard the, "Oh geez!", she knew who it was.

"Elia?"
"Yes, dear?"

The plump, older woman poked her round head through the hole. She smiled, and her eyes lit up the room like two shimmery Christmas lights. Fiona smiled back, for she knew Elia could be trusted with her secrets. Elia knew what it was like to grow up in a rich family and be curious of the outdoors. She would pick and prod at everything she saw, rolled in the mud, and jumped in the lake. All things Fiona would long to do, would lon for her parents to allow her to enjoy nature. The only nature play her parents would approve of would be sitting on a neat, clean patch of grass, mending a flower crown and singing to the birds.

Fiona liked to sing to the birds, and she enjoyed making flower crowns. But the clean, sitting in one space part, she could not do.

Fiona bookmarked her place as Elia threw her a clean dress and climbed down back into the mansion to attend to Remi and Damon's needs for dinner. Fiona pulled on the dress, a pink, lacy one, combed her hair in the full view mirror she had, and climbed out of the Attic.

Fiona brushed off her dress and ran down the glass staircase, fixing the bow in her hair as she went. She halted to a stop in front of the dining room, where her parents looked at her in surprise and Elia eyed her in a way that said, they've got bad news.

Fiona, startled, sat down across from her parents like usual. As they ate, Remi set down her fork, cleared her throat, and dabbed her face with a napkin. Damon put his fork down and folded his hands, looking at Fiona.

"Fiona, we have news and we don't think you'll like it."

Fiona waited.

"We're sending you to finishing school." Remi nodded and Damon raised an eyebrow.

A single tear made its way down Fiona's face as she left the table and ran up to her room.