sweet, sweet memories

Chapter Ten ~ I Don't Know...

Enjoy, children ;D

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~ Skylar ~

Let's fast forward a few days, shall we? About 3 days later, I was better. Better, meaning I could now deal with society. Not only that, I had a thought weighing on my mind, constantly nagging with its urgent need to be noticed. Let me explain. While Ryder was working on his bike, a picture had slipped out of his jacket pocket. Obviously, I had picked it up, and I was going to hand it back to him. But I caught a glance of the scene the polaroid had held - it was me as a little girl with a little boy with startling green eyes standing next to me. His hair was unruly and untamed...just like Ryder's.  We were both smiling, and my eyes held a light in them that I had lost somewhere along the way. Was this my childhood - the childhood that I didn't remember?  My mind had started racing and all I could think was, Why does Ryder have this picture of me? Who's that boy next to me? Is that Ryder as a little boy? Did I know him when I was little? And if that's the case, why don't I remember?

Obviously, these thoughts plagued me over the past weeks. Obviously, I was bothered. Obviously, I was slowly going crazy with these thoughts keeping me up at night. Obviously, I was avoiding Ryder because of this. All these obvious things except the answer behind that picture.

I hadn't seen Ryder since that day at the cliff. I had ignored his calls, texts, and I even went to the extent of forcing myself to tell the maid to send him away when he came to knock on the door. The guilt of cutting him off like that was eating me alive, but I just wasn't ready to face him.

That being said, me recovering from the little episode at school and my glimpse into my past meant I had to return to the beginning of society's hierarchy - high school. Going back to school meant I had to see Ryder, which was something I was not quite ready to do. Nonetheless, I didn't want to miss another day of school because of my cowardice, whether it was from Mina or Ryder. I did care about getting into a relatively decent college, after all. It's what Mom would've wanted.

Running my plan for the day through my head as I stuffed my essentials into my bag, I tried to calm my nerves. It was simple. Go to class, avoid eye-contact, head down, and the library was a safe place, noting as how nobody ever went there. The plan was simple. Fool-proof. Crafted to avoid any kind of confrontation. Except for one little flaw. I needed a ride to school.

Dammit, dammit, dammit. What do I do? I can't possibly walk to school with the time I have. I aggressively paced in front of my house, probably earning more than a few weird stares from the house staff, I'm sure. The low rumble of an engine crawled onto my driveway. Well isn't your timing just perfect? I swallowed the groan and debated whether I still had a chance of escaping inside or not.

"Skylar!"

Nope. I've been spotted. Abort! Abort!

I swallowed and tried to sound casual. "Hey!" Nope. Too peppy. I tried a smile to even it out. Oh fuck. Now I look like a psycho. Nice going.

Ryder didn't seem to notice my internal conflict and instead, began the interrogation that was inevitable. "Why didn't you answer my calls or my texts?! Did you know how worried I was?! Fuck, Skylar!" I inwardly shrank at his outburst. I deserved it, but it didn't make it any less cringe-worthy.

"I'm sorry. I'll tell you later, okay? We need to get to school right now or we're going to be late." My feeble attempt to deflect his questions wasn't by a long-shot, going to end this...whatever this was. But it was enough to deflate Ryder's little bubble of aggression temporarily, and enough for him to toss me a helmet.