Lost Nor Found

Chapter 2

Laelynn slammed her locker shut as the bell rang, glad that for once, it wasn't covered in marks or graffiti, nor was it full of trash on the inside. She tried her best to ignore the whispers floating around about Mackenzie and Laelynn.

Her eyes still flicked anxiously around briefly, despite all she was trying to do to ignore it. She adjusted her backpack so it wouldn't hurt her bruised back as much just as she saw Carson out of the corner of her eye.

Not this again.

"Going somewhere?" Carson taunted, smirking as a few students - Carson's friends - already started to crowd around them. Laelynn couldn't help but shrink back a bit from their biting glares and their bloodthirsty eyes. They were craving humiliation. What monsters.

"Home," Laelynn murmured through gritted teeth.

"Right, back to your crazy, mental mother." She flinched, much to Carson's delight. She cursed herself for showing such weakness. But, when it came to her mother...

"Well, I suppose I shouldn't be keeping you, then."

What?

She blinked, surprised that he would let her go, just like that. He stepped out of the way, smiling. Whispers erupted once again. Suspicious yet relieved, she started to walk away.

Unfortunately, she failed to notice Caron's extended leg. She tripped and crashed to the ground, pain stinging her entire body. It hurt even more - thanks to the new bruises she had. Carson and the group of students laughed as Laelynn struggled to get back up, humiliation burning in her cheeks. A few students flinched when she fell, expressionless, but did nothing to help.

Strong, Laelynn thought to herself. I have to be strong.

She stood, pretending she was completely fine, despite the pain slicing through her leg and back. She glanced around at the few students still standing there, waiting for her to cry, to react, to do something. The look in their eyes pricked her skin, but she refused to satisfy them and their twisted minds. She walked away quickly, without shedding a single tear, without giving them a second thought.

She headed out the front of the school, relieved when no-one else confronted her. After Silverleaf High was a good distance away, she stopped to lean on a tree, releasing a deep breath when she no longer felt any heavy stares, nor heard any haunting whispers. A weight was lifted off her shoulders, allowing her to breathe again. She started her thirty minute walk home, the map of which path to take engraved permanently in her mind after all these years.

Smiling, she looked around, never bored with the beauty of the path. It cut off from the main sidewalk, weaving through a cluster of trees you couldn't really call a forest. Beautiful lanterns stood tall along the edges of the path, lighting up even the darkest parts. Even in the sharp and icy winter, even with all trees but the evergreens bare, it managed to take on a beautifully magical air. She reached the middle of the path - her favorite spot. The path split in a circle at the base of a huge weeping willow, its branches nearly sweeping the ground. It grew here, just a few meters away from a small pond to the left, beside the path. Around it at the two ends of the paths were benches, but the real beauty was inside, past the curtain of branches. She ran towards it, in need of a little beauty after the ugliness the day had brought her.

Laelynn stepped through the curtain and gasped - like always. The area was even larger than it looked from the outside, with branches intertwining and crossing the other, reaching up and up and up, like they were reaching for the stars. She walked up to the trunk of the tree, running her hand along the intricate designs nature had imprinted on the bark. Memories flashed across her eyes, glowing with golden summer light, smiling with a soft, sweet summer breeze, but most of all...