joe's foster home // fillie

t w e l v e

twelve

december 28th, 1:07pm

if there was one thing millie hated about snow, it was that it was white.

white was the most reflective color and if you've ever driven in the snow you knew that sunglasses were required in order to block out the beam of light that would bounce off the snow and burn off your cornea. even then, wearing sunglasses would only block out like two percent of satan's flashlight.

but millie wasn't wearing sunglasses when she woke up to the sun slapping her in the face.

a shock was sent through her body as she curled up and rapidly turned toward the side of the bed with a wall, towards the shade.

"good morning indiana! today's forecast: clear, blue skies; heavy snow; and a pissed off sun,"

millie shielded her eyes as she turned towards the figure that was speaking. she should've known that it was noah by the way he tried masking his voice with a deep masculine, newscaster-like tone.

as soon as millie scanned noah's face, she grabbed the pillow from underneath her and shoved it in her face, muffling her groan.

"millie, it's literally one o'clock in the afternoon," noah said, as he walked towards the open door, "joe ordered three pizzas, garlic knots, and pasta from rosana's and he's gonna shove your food up my ass if you don't come down,"

millie didn't reply, and instead breathed thought the microscopic pores of her pillow.

"millie," noah said.

millie threw her pillow on the ground.

"i'll be down," she persisted.

then noah was quiet.

millie maintained eye contact with him, her eyes pleading for him to descend to lunch. there seemed to be the shared thought; the shared reality that millie wouldn't come downstairs. not even for pasta.

noah nodded, "okay,"

he closed the door behind him.

millie put her pillow back under her head.

millie had been feeling shitty.

yesterday she didn't want to leave her bed because she just felt so heavy. and she barely did. she got up to pee and that was about it. and even then, it took her thirty minutes of thinking about peeing before she actually went.

yesterday, joe brought her soup and asked if she needed to talk and was constantly supportive. but today, joe had let her sleep in for hours and hours because she had barely slept in the past week since she'd arrived. yesterday millie had practically slept through the entire day and she was craving for the same kind of comfort from her bed today because she felt like someone was tugging down on her eyelids.

and it wasn't just the tiredness.

she felt guilty.

she felt guilty for celebrating christmas without her family. she knew that this guilt would get to her at some point, but she expected voices to be screaming in her head. she expected to see the flickering image of family members angry at her.

but instead, etched into the back of her brain, were their disappointed faces. her sister's resonated with her the most. it was like someone had taken away her prized teddy bear and thrown it in a shredder in front of her. her face was on the verge of tears and millie knew it had been her fault.

she curled up her body, pulling the sheets tighter around herself.

"BITCH" someone suddenly screamed.