Remember This✔

Chapter Five

"So what happened?" Molly's mother asked her as she found Molly in tears in her bedroom. "This girl called you names?"

"She said I stole her boyfriend," Molly cried. "But she's lying, momma. And she's telling everyone."

Molly was only nine at the time and even though she was a popular nine-year-old she was still at the mercy of another girl's cruelty. She just wanted to be friends with everyone, girls and boys, and she couldn't understand when that didn't happen.

"But it's a lie," her mother said. "So, you have nothing to feel bad about. You're a nice girl, Moll, nicer than the ones calling you names. If you want to get back at her then keep being nice to her. It will confuse her. Girls like that just want to test your reactions and it's your reactions that they'll remember about you."

Molly stands in front of the mirror of the toilets inside the changing room. She decided to get changed here and so far she's been left in peace. She wears a V-neck tight shirt with the school's logo on it along with knee-high sweatpants that makes her bum twice as big. Her curly, dark blonde hair is tied back into a pony tail on the top of her head and her lightly tanned skin looks paler underneath the bright lights of the toilets. She looks into her own hazel eyes at the mirror, blinking them softly. With her hair like this and her uniform like everyone else's she can almost blend in as normal.

She splashes water against her dry face as she remembers the only other time a girl had made her cry. Her mother knew exactly what to say, exactly what to do, exactly what Molly needed to hear. Her mother isn't here to help her now.

Molly walks out of the changing room and places her clothes and bag into a locker. She hears laughter all around the room and it makes her paranoid. She wants to leave but she's scared she will be the first and she doesn't know who will be next out. She backs up to the cold wall, becoming occupied with her nails.

"Jesus," a voice says. "You almost look normal."

Molly knows the voice belongs to Camilla but she doesn't look up. She sees many pairs of sneakers walk past her own and exit the changing room. With Camilla out of the room, Molly looks up with a new breath. After more girls leave Molly leaves too and makes her way to the back door and out onto the track.

"Hurry up, ladies! Come on!" the gym instructor, Miss Beachwell, screams. She is a tall, broad woman with hard muscles and enormous thighs.

Molly jogs along with everyone else towards her and they all stand in a huddle at the edge of the running track. Most of them are standing in their friendship groups, even the less popular girls have a friend by their side. Molly is by herself.

"You're gonna be split into two groups today," Miss Beachwell says. "Half are doing track; the other half are doing the obstacle course. You'll switch after an hour."

"What groups?" a girl asks.

Miss Beachwell sighs and walks towards the front line of girls, she claps her hands together and narrows them downwards, indicating a divide down the middle. She looks to the left, towards Molly's side. "This side is doing track first. I'll be watching closely so no funny business. For those doing track I want to see thirty laps completed in the hour. Got it?"

The track group nod and scatter.

Molly takes off towards a lane, a temporary smile is on her face as she begins to run. She loves running. She is drawn towards the idea that she doesn't have to be running from anything or towards anything, she is just caught in a moment of looseness.

After her tenth lap around the track Molly stops at a table to take a drink of water. While drinking the plastic cup is suddenly knocked from her hand, injuring her mouth and cheek momentarily. The cup and the water greet the floor and she stares in shock at a red-headed girl with freckles all over her face and arms. This is the first time Molly has ever been physically assaulted.

"Oops," the girl says. "You should watch where you're going."

"I was standing still," Molly says.

"No, you walked into me. Are you calling me a liar?"

Molly blinks. Over the redhead's shoulder she sees Camilla and her friends laughing and smirking. The redhead doesn't wait for a response, she strolls back over to her group and laughs along. It becomes obvious that Camilla had instructed the redhead to do it or possibly dared her to, they'd do anything she tells them.

Molly can't understand how this has come about today. Camilla has never really showed interest in her before. There has been remarks now and again but nothing on the scale of what she has suffered today. Molly knows suffering like the back of her hand, even without Camilla's taunts she could never be happy. Happiness is a foreign concept to Molly. It is something that came into her life for thirteen years, left, and never returned again.

"Remember this," Savannah said, just a week before her death. She was standing underneath the archway to the kitchen with oven gloves over her hands. "If you're happy, you're winning."

"I'm always happy," Molly replied while glancing up from her phone to smile at her sister. "Are you happy?"

"I'm an adult, I'm hardly ever happy. Oh, what I'd give to be a teenager again. My teenage years were the happiest years of my life."

"Really?" Molly objected. "All that boring study stuff."

"Well obviously that didn't make me happy," Savannah laughed. "But the parties, the boys, the endless searching of who I am. Those were the days. You've got all that ahead of you. Your teenage years will be the best too, Mo, just go with it."

Molly laughed. "Why are you telling me all of this? Don't you have burning chicken to take out the oven?"

"Yeah. Maybe. Dinner's in five!"

Molly snaps back to present day, to where her heart is aching and her legs are trembling. She can't control when the memories hit her or which they will be, they just come. She looks to her left and imagines her sister standing next to her. Her comforting smile, her wise words, her unbelievable optimism. Savannah would be heartbroken to see her like this. To see her happy, baby sister so lost and damaged. Savannah told Molly that the best years of her life would be her teenage years; ironically, they were her worst because of Savannah. Because Molly lost her.

Molly turns away from the stares and chuckles and she heads back towards the track. She begins to run with no desire to stop.