Meant for each other?

-37-

Midnight.

The big clock in the tower chimes twelve and Karlie takes a deep breath, letting her thoughts steam up the window she's sat by. No-one has moved in the creaking girls wing for at least two hours. There's been no emergencies: no guidance counsellors called to the rescue and no sick kids. It's all very quiet.

The brunette enjoys the peace. It'll be her last few moments of it if her plan works. Inhaling once more, she leaves her note on the wooden desk by her vanity. Her backpack, stuffed with a teenage girls necessity's, sits neatly on the floor by the door. It seems to be begging Karlie to pick it up and leave. Once more, she surveys the neatly made room. It's scarily tidy, including the fluffed pillows on the smoothed duvet. Then, backpack in tow, she sneaks out.

The cool night air ricochetes around the tall girls lungs as she hugs the perimeter boundary. A looming wall of dry stone is hugging her back. Karlie would be lying if she said she wasn't scared. She could be losing everything that has ever meant anything to her at this point: modelling, Taylor and, in some ways, the old English boarding school that's given her chance after chance. She knows she doesn't deserve any of the chances Berkshire County has given her, especially as this is going to be one final fuck you.

"Fuck!" Karlie exclaims as she turns, startling herself by mistaking a bush for security lying-in-wait. The school only has one security guard at night, working in shifts of three hours before going home for the night. This plays to the brunettes advantage as she comes to the place she plans to leave.

It's dry brick, but built like it's supposed to be climbed over. Stones stick out like steps and it's not much effort for Karlie's long limbs to climb them before perching herself on top. She knows that she's a deer in the headlights at this point. Easily seen against the fluorescent glow of the street lamps outside her school, Karlie needs to get down. However, this part of her plan is uncertain. A six foot drop waits for her, cunningly enticing her. Dropping could mean a sprained ankle and that's the last thing the brunette needs as she tries to escape.

Doubt begins cloud in the corners of the brunette's mind. She doesn't need to do this. But what's the alternative? A long chat with Taylor about her feelings; feelings that she doesn't want to acknowledge. Karlie sighs, sitting in the glare of street lamps. She needs to make a decision, preferably quickly, and every inch of her body is screaming at her as if to say that if she jumps over that wall, she will regret it. Old Karlie wouldn't have paid the slightest bit of attention to this. However, now it was as if her entire future rested on this decision.

No.

She will go back and call Kari from her favourite bench just outside the aquatics centre. Then, if there's still a risk that things might escalate, Karlie decides she'll find Taylor. A deep breath escaping her lungs, Karlie scrambles back down. Her lean legs make quick work of the elegant dance through the shadows to the bench she wants to make her call from. It's funny how the smallest of things can become a symbol of solidarity and hope. Many pivotal events at that school had occurred whilst perching on the bench, sometimes with friends and sometimes alone.

"Kari." Karlie smiles to herself when she hears her sister's voice through the phone, greeting her gently, and a weight lifts from her tight shoulders.

Kari sounds raspy. "Karls, please don't hate me. I'm sorry, I'm so-so sorry!"

"Hey, hey Kari. It's okay. You're okay. I do not hate you!" Karlie soothes her younger sister from the other side of the Atlantic, an ache settling in her chest as she so badly wants to be there for her younger sister. "Talk to me love."

"Everything just got so hard Karls. Since Christmas things have definitely been better but since you haven't been here Dad has been around again and I just feel so afraid around him and, and-"