Kaitlyn was abruptly shaken from her sleep by the familiar song that seemed to scream from her phone. She quickly turned it off, resisting the urge to destroy the phone and sleep for decades. She groaned as she checked the time. It was 7:32, school started in less than an hour. She muttered profanities under her breath as she dragged her feet to the bathroom, turning on the light and shivering at her appearance. Her usual straight and basic brown/blonde hair was messy and tangled, her eye-bags dark, and her skin pale. She quickly stepped away from the mirror, turning the shower on. She stripped her clothes off of her body, quickly stepping into the shower. She yelped softly at the freezing jets of water that seemed to attack her, but lived through the pain knowing that this is all good for her hair, and skin; but perhaps not her sanity.
The walk to school was brutal. It was ice cold outside, and her flimsy blue hoodie wasn't helping very much. She practically sprinted through the front doors of her school, just in time for the bell. She quickly scampered to the band hall, smiling awkwardly at confused bystanders.
By the time the third period bell rang, she was ready to die.
Negative thoughts floated around her head darkly as she tried to calm herself down. Phoebe wasn't helping either, her loud chatter with Joseph making everything so much worse.
"Hey weirdo."
She practically evaporated.
Her head whipped toward the ghost of her imagination.
"Lila! took you long enough. You scared the shit out of me, too." She muttered, holding a hand over her heart as she calmed herself again.
Phoebe looked at her with eyes that sent a less than kind message. Kaitlyn rolled her own green eyes and kept walking. She kept muttering to the ghost that floated alongside her, which looked pathetic to others, as they couldn't see Lila. When she entered the math classroom, her breath was robbed from her again as Mimi launched herself onto the poor girls back. "Kaitlyn! Where were you yesterday?" She asked, hanging onto the girls neck loosely. "I slept in. Not really accidentally though." She said honestly, picking up a worksheet from the tray, seating herself calmly. "Well we missed you. Right Drusilla?" The small girl asked, looking over to the calm figure beside her. "Yes, Mimi, we all missed Kaitlyn. Kaitlyn and her Uno." Drusilla said, grinning devilishly as Kaitlyn groaned in annoyance. "You guys and that damned Uno. I think you like it more than me sometimes." She muttered, scribbling over the paper darkly.
"You're not far off." Peyton admitted, seating herself next to Kaitlyn, twirling a pencil in thought as she also started to work on the math sheet.
They fell into a comfortable silence, only broken by an occasional question or dumb statement that made everyone chuckle calmly. Kaitlyn couldn't ever imagine things differently. She smiled to herself. She loved these people. Nothing could change that. Nothing could change them. She decided that she would stay with these people forever. She could never imagine leaving.
Yet, Kaitlyn doesn't decide everything, apparently.
Not in this story, at least.
