Disguised In Lavender

Part 15

The rain only got harsher by the time Ann and Lauren had been led to the buckskin gelding's stall at the very end of the corridor. Mr. Terence accompanied them halfway there before one of his younger students came stumbling up to him. He'd gone off to help her tack up for their lesson and explained in a rush that the girls should acquaint themselves. "You wanna meet him?" Lauren asked gently as her teacher strode away, hoping that maybe their midnight ride had grown Ann's confidence. "Um, you first." She ran her fingers through her hair and untangled her ponytail, snapping the band around her wrist.

It wasn't as much of a win as Lauren had hoped but she couldn't help feeling at least a little proud. Her fingers trailed the gold engraved name tag hanging from the gelding's freshly polished bridle. "Midnight Trails, Ducky." She muttered under her breath, giggling as Ducky propped his head over the stall at the sound of his name, a piece of straw sticking out between his velvety lips. "Must be fate, Midnight Trails, he's much cuter than Gravity." Ann took a tentative step closer and opened her hand, palm face up and her fingers spread in a fan under Ducky's chin. "Rude." Lauren joked, lifting her hand to run it up and down beneath the gelding's black forelock, making him bob his head.

Sawdust fell in what felt like deserts of mounds as Lauren dumped her boots in front of the dorm door. After patting her new show horse all over from outside his stall, her heart was aching to ride, but she wasn't willing to terrify Ann on the first day of prep. The trainer was missing, having run back to her own dorm to study and leaving Lauren alone. Without Zack or Ann, the dorm felt too small and too quiet somehow at the same time, the door creaking louder than usual. Settling down in her spinning desk chair, Lauren tried to drag her mind away from riding and make her eyes focus on her English work. She blew an exhausted breath from her cheeks and glared up at the clock not minutes later, willing it to spin faster.

"I won't call her, she's busy." Tapping her pencil on the desk with her teeth gritted, her eyes floated from the textbook to her phone, black screen reflecting the spinning of the fan overhead. Flipping it over, Lauren covered her ears with her hands and screwed her eyes shut tight, throwing herself back to the lake. She tried to remember how the lapping water looked with the trees and moon shining into its depths but nothing came up. All that flashed in her mind's window was Ann squealing in surprise and her arms around her neck as they were thrown in the water.

Throwing her head back, she opened her eyes and let out a groan of annoyance, lavender should be a drug if it made her head spin like this. Thirty minutes felt like an eternity until Zack's familiar heavy steps drew Lauren's attention towards the door. He kicked the door open, keys in his teeth and arms filled with papers overflowing from a raggedy string bag. "I have decided to hate you." He announced with a bit of a lisp as he swung around and head butted the door closed, spitting out his keys. "What's new?" Lauren retorted smoothly, crossing her legs and spinning the chair to face her roommate. Zack didn't answer until he'd crumbled onto his bed, gasping as the books fell onto his chest and knocked the air out of him.

"I ran into Ann on her way to the library." The pause and slight coaxing glance that was shot Lauren's way made her lean back curiously and spin in her pen between her fingers. "She's pretty isn't she, like really cute?" Zack flipped his phone out of his pocket and showed a picture of him posing with Ann and wiggled his eyebrows. No, absolutely not, Dalla getting to Ann was less traumatizing than Zack dating her and for seemingly no reason. "What about it?" She asked, trying not to sound too offended, comforted by the sight of her sweater around the trainer. "You would let her walk all that way in the pouring rain?" He fluffed his damp hair as if showing off a point and snatched his phone back with a huff of distaste.

A moment of silence passed between them as Zack began nonchalantly unpacking his bag with Lauren's unfocused gaze on him. She reached for her phone and heaved herself out of the chair, sending it spinning in dizzying circles in place. Fingers dialing the now familiar numbers, she wriggled her arm into the sleeve of her jacket and juggled the dorm keys. Not bothering to even wave goodbye to her roommate, Lauren broke into a sprint down the carpeted green halls. Three rings and Ann picked up, her voice just above a whisper but a wave of relief washed over Lauren. "Lauren?" Background taps of high heels confirmed that the trainer was in fact in the campus library not far.

Snatching an umbrella and hastily opening it with a rusted snap, Lauren shifted the phone to between her ear and shoulder. "Where are you?" Of course she knew, Zack and her own instinct had confirmed it but the question dripped off her tongue before she could stop it. "The library, why?" A thick clump of mud flew up as Lauren pounded through a puddle and coated the healing scratch from days before. Hissing in pain, she flipped her platinum hair to the opposite side and blew a stray lock out of her eyes. "On my way." Without hearing Ann's confirmation, Lauren hung up and slid her phone into her jacket pocket, slowing to a jog.

The pounding rain didn't subside even after Lauren tapped her dripping umbrella on the brick walls to the library and leaned it against a lost and found sign. Running her fingers through her slightly damp hair and shaking off the hood that hung limply from the crown of her head. The library on campus was huge, spiraling staircases that lead up to the terrifyingly high ceilings stacked with books. Lit by dim candlelight and broken bulbs that crackled with a somehow comforting terror of an electrical fire. The librarian looked down on Lauren from her half spectacles and wrinkled her nose as if in disgust.

She normally would have made a face back but it wasn't worth it, eyes already scanning the tables for Ann. The blond stepped around from behind a bookcase as Lauren sauntered through it like a lost puppy. "You aren't hurt are you? I swear, I nearly threw my books onto some poor junior when I saw your call." Ann stepped closer to Lauren, her starry blue eyes crinkling at the edges in displeased reprimand. Lauren couldn't hide the small smile that crept onto her face, Ann was worried about her. "Don't give me that look, oh look at you. If the flu doesn't kill you this stupid infection will." She lifted a hand to gently flick away the mud on Lauren's cheek, clicking her tongue with a sigh.