Beauty and the Beast | Fillie

No remedy to memory

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FEBRUARY

She took a step in France, the city of love, feeling finally free. The European sky above her, the feeling of being finally abroad, made her feel relieved, carefree.

Millie and David Brown, daughter and father, wanted to take a break from their hard work at the bookshop and the strange adventure they lived in the past months, spending Millie's nineteenth birthday in a far away city, in a five stars hotel... gently offered by Finn Wolfhard himself.

Dressed with a fluffy lemon colored overalls, a denim jacket and a white fiddler hat on, the brunette decided to do what she always wanted: explore. Armed with her Nikon and her patience, she decided that Paris would have been her first journey as a young adult.

There was so much to see; the Champs-Élysées, the Louvre, the Eiffel Tour, the Arc de Triomph. She was absolutely enthusiastic — even though, in her heart, the thought of him was always there. She wondered, while walking down the French streets, how it would have been hanging out with him in a city she never saw before.

She wondered how beautiful it would have been to take his hand and explore the world, standing side by side. Yes, what a marvelous dream.

But, instead, she wasn't there with her boyfriend, because he had to get married — probably in May, as Lilia had told her on the telephone some weeks before, and Millie perfectly knew that a few days away from Vancouver were exactly what she needed to heal and take her life back together, in order to be the usual girl, the one she loved and missed; the fighter, her own knight in the shining armor, her own savior.

She definitely missed that strong side of her. And most importantly, she didn't want to suffer anymore.

He needed to stay away from her, or his father would have destroyed him. She needed to protect him, taking some distance as much as possible. And even though she couldn't distance herself with her heart, she tried escaping from the state, using the gift he gave her for Christmas.

But it was hard; especially because just some days before her trip...

Millie was walking home from college, backpack on her back and headphones on; it was just her, completely immersed into music — sometimes she felt like the protagonist of a video clip of songs, as all the dreamers do.

David was still working at Brown's Corner and she just couldn't wait to get home and forget about the date of that annoying day: 14th of February.

In a way, she knew that Finn was not particularly in for forced festivities: you didn't need a date to remind someone how much you loved them, right? Nevertheless, Millie was a romantic and she never spent Valentine's Day with someone.

At high school people tried, giving her flowers or chocolate, but she wasn't really inclined. She accepted sweets or candies so that Noah could eat them afterwords.

She had finally reached her blue house. She removed all of her stuff, shoes, bag, and she ran upstairs: first room on the right. "Keep out - I am reading" written on the purple door, her name glittered on the wooden surface.

As she opened it and turned out the light, a scream resounded in her room. It belonged to her.

"Oh my dear Goodness—" she shut her eyes and checked her frenetic beating heart with her right hand splayed on her chest.

"What...?"

She looked down and she saw a path made of petals of roses which leaded to her bed; on the mattress there was a wicker basket. Inside of it, she could spot a branch of red roses (of course); a Twining wooden box filled with teas of all flavors (because it was her favorite tea brand); a platinum Montblanc stylographic pen (because she loved writing) with the value of, more or less, 450 dollars.