Outside her taxi window, it's vigorously raining. Every lightning flash takes her back to her last memories with her family as another storm brews inside. While the taxi driver took her to her new home, flashbacks of her parents and her brother appeared in her head. They were singing "On the first day of Christmas" merrily on the way home for it was the day before Christmas Eve and the "secret" presents were in the trunk. But as her brother makes a joke about some grandma being run over by reindeer, the car in front swerved to the right as a red corolla came crashing into their car front on. Tears trickled down her cheeks as her thoughts traveled back to the memory when she watched the lights leave her parents and brother's eyes playback like a broken record in her mind. She was only seven when she lost her family to an underaged driver and barely understood what had happened. Only Blaire and the other driver to survived.
The drunk driver had taken her family in one fell swoop and had given her a scar to the face to never forget. She never once smiled after that.
-8 years later-
Even after just turning fifteen not one family had kept her longer than a week. She wasn't a bad kid, she's an admirable child, but every time she tried to call her foster parent "mom" or tried to make herself be useful and do all the chores out of desperateness to stay, a wave of grief would wash over them because every time they looked at her scar on her face, they thought they wouldn’t be able to help her cope with her memories with what had happened to her and her family. They would just give up there and simply return her to the foster homes because they couldn't didn’t believe in themselves to fix her. This took a toll on her. And because she didn't make any warm memories, the vivid face of the driver who took her family was still burned into her memory. As an effort to stay, she learned to smile even though she wasn't happy inside. Still, no one kept her. As she arrived at her new destination, it stopped raining and the clouds cleared just enough to shed light on where she would be living in next. It was a much larger house then the previous one she stayed in. Quietly thanking her driver, she took her belongings out and left the car. Not wanting another broken heart, she weighed whether it would be worthwhile if she were to run away, so she would never have to go through the process of burning through foster homes ever again; but when she tried to figure out what she would do to take care of her basic needs, she ended up just giving up as she always did. As a minor shd understood that there was very little she could do on her own without an adult backing her. Instead, she stood there and imagined herself running away. The wind in her hair, she would be free! Nothing would be in the way and... The door to her new home suddenly opened and out popped the head of an old swain. He quickly asked if she were coming and left the door open but raced back what he was doing. Without lingering on the nice thought any longer, she grabbed her small suitcase and hurried towards the door as she saw smoke coming through the door. Ignoring her instinct to turn and go the opposite way, she continued forward. Her curiosity got the better of her as she went in to see what the smoke was about and quickly realized that this man, whoever he was, was no cook.
It seemed like he tried cooking something, but it went terribly wrong. And what ever was cooking, correction: burning in the oven, smelled like a failed chemistry experiment from a group of college students who never listened in class and mixed two explosives together. The microwave was left open with bits of shells from an exploded egg all over the place. She walked a few steps towards the source of the smoke: the oven. The burnt smell hit her like a bomb. The guy from earlier opened the oven and was dispersing the fumes, but only now he was wearing a hazmat suit. The aweful smell couldn't seem to get worse but what intrieged her more was that the guy was wearing a hazmat suit in the kitchen. She had also never seen one in real life before so she was taken aback. It was a mystery to the girl where and what he had to do to abtain a hazmat suit, but she stood there in awe by what the man's failing attempt to prepare a meal he was obviously not used to. She made a stab in the dark and guessed he was trying to make a welcome meal, but it was unfortunately reduced to a pile of charcoal because of his lack of skill in the 'art of cooking', as her mom would have said. The man now had slumped his shoulders forward in shame and was probably wondering how or better yet what they were going to eat. What was supposed to be elegantly served was a gracious slice medium rare steak for the both of them with a side of Brazil's famous "Creme Fraiche Quiche" was ash now. The girl recognized his pained expression and asked if she could take care of it. Doubting that she could be any worse then him, he shrugged and said for her to do whatever she wanted. Blaire quickly grabbed an old used shirt she saw on the way in and asked where the things were in the kitchen. After the breighf explaination, he started to wonder out the door. But before he left and she began, she remembered she didn't properly greet the man and introduce herself and what not so she made a quick introduction that her name was Blaire and that she learned to cook over the years to become more useful. She then quickly began to work with the remaining ingredients he had left out. Because Blaire had stopped him from leaving for the introduction anyway, he decided to stay and watch.
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In the other homes of the families that took her in, she had briskly learned that most families kept her longer the more useful or the more "helpful" she was. So, she learned to cook and to clean. But because these families wanted to lead a “normal child” -and because hint hint knudge knudge wink wink Blaire isn’t and will never be ‘normal’- they didn't want to keep her. Their usual reason of giving her back was because she always seemed depressed because she never smiled and also gave off a vibe that spread to her surroundings. She never had any luck with finding good foster parents. No one really mentioned it, but she knew they didn't want her because of the big scare on her face. And to make matters worse, she never actually opened up to anyone because of this.
She cut the remaining vegetables into very small pieces and asked where the rice was. It took awhile for the preparations because the work place was a huge mess. There were no longer egg shells scattered all over the place. The kitchen was finaly clean. Not a single piece of evidence of the exploded egg remained in the microwave. She thought it was quite odd that a grown man didn't know not to put an egg in the microwave because it would explode.
She wanted to make her favorite dish: fried rice, but because he didn't have rice, she thought she would make her own arrangement of fried vegetables. For a guy that seemed to have the oddest of odd bits of things, when he told her that a rice cooker or even rice, her eyes widened and her mouth dropped open. It just caught her off guard. It didn't make sense to her! How can a guy that has a hazmat suit not have rice?! (she had also gotten used to having a rice cooker handy at the other foster homes so perhaps she had took it for granted; because of her live for rice, it even became apart of all the meals she cooked for anyone). The man hadn't moved since she took action. He was as still as a statue, he couldn't believe his eyes. His mind had been jumbled when he was preparing what was supposed to be food when he let her in. She was just standing there, cooking something mouthwatering. He just couldn't believe his eyes.
"Are you secretly a famous cook that was turned into a child from an illegal drug or dark magic?" (Reference to Detective Conan)
The question was so odd, it stumped her for a second because it was just so out of place. So out of the blue. She burst into laughfter even though it wasn't that funny. She explained that she learned to first cook when she first learned to read with her biological parents. She simply got better with practice. As she smiled, she relaxed and all the tension in her body disappeared. She hadn't laughed like that since her family had went ahead. The odd joke had allowed her to lose the tention that was built up in her and she was glad and thankful for that. She gradually eased into the thought that she might be able to stay in his house for awhile just because of his simple needs. He was a bit helpless; how was he living before she arrived? Probably off of fast food... And in that moment of brief relief, she felt a tingling sensation. Seconds later, her vision suddenly blured and she fell unconscious.