to make things awkward | fillie

3 | millie's stuff

One night with absolutely no interruptions from her phone was exactly what Millie had needed. Just one night with no calls, no emails, no texts, no reports, no socials. Just peace. And that's exactly what was granted to her.

The next morning, her shoulders felt less tense, the furrow in her brow had flattened and her lungs felt like they could take in more air. She could breathe.

But then she thought about that evening and the virtual premier she had to attend and little irksome bits of stress began to resurface. So she put on a yoga video and followed the exercises until she felt more awake and less anxious.

She had been eating breakfast when a knock came from her door. A look through the security camera showed it to be Ava holding a medium cardboard box with markings all over it. Her little sister looked into the camera and yelled, "Let me innn!"

With a laugh, she pressed the button that unlocked the door, "Hey Ave!"

"Ugh, hey. Here take this."

Taking the box, Millie found out why Ava was so pissy this morning.

"Lord. What is this?" quickly turning around, she placed the box on the dining table.

"How am I supposed to know? It says 'Millie's stuff' all over it. Mum told me to bring it here before the photographer came to get pictures of the house. It's going on the market in a few days." the twenty-one year old rubbed her shoulder while looking around, "Place looks deserted."

With a scoff, Millie replied, "That's because the last you were here, there were also scores of crazed twenty year olds here all celebrating your twenty-first birthday."

"Ah, I suppose you're right." she nodded, "Though that party wouldn't have even been in the running against my eighteenth in London." she had a devilish smirk on her face, "My twenty-first was mainly to appease my American friends."

"Regardless," Millie said, "You should come over more often."

"That goes both ways, Mil." the tone stung. Sure Millie had been busy lately, but her family understood that. At least she thought her family understood that. But the sweetness between the sisters had soured. She longed for the days when Ava was little and thought Millie could do no wrong. When just walking into a room would make Ava bloom with happiness. Seeing her little sister grow into the young woman before her was such a two-sided sword. On the one edge, she got to be witness to the evolution of Ava's youth and watch her fumble through adolescence into her adult body with her adult mind and her growing sense of activism. To say Millie was proud of her little sister would be an understatement.

On the other, parallel edge of the sword, however, was the fact that Ava had grown past her childhood blindness to Millie's shortcomings. She no longer looked past them to see Millie as her hero like she did when she was young. It wasn't like Millie had expected to be Ava's favorite person forever, but to be at least in the top ten would be nice. These days, though, it seemed like Ava's circle of climate activist friends had all her sympathy. Well them, their parents, and their brother, Charlie, since after his divorce, he'd been living back at home.

Millie tried, like with the birthday party she threw, to connect with her baby sister, but she was still closed off. Maybe it was just the age. Maybe the young twenties were always those times to find yourself and rebel and not care. It hadn't exactly been that for Millie, she'd done most of that in her late teens, but maybe for Ava, that was now.

Millie nodded and looked toward the box, "So you didn't even peek?"

"What could you possibly have in there that would be of interest to me?"