Lego House | ✓

6. distance

A week of silence— that was mad.

Vik hadn't heard from her in seven days. He even tried reaching out to her, but she remained silent and simply shrugged. The girl didn't want to be seen, or noticed at all in that matter.

No one else cared for her or even thought about her. Kayla didn't attend school or contact anyone. She had concealed herself in her own little bubble once again.

Vik stopped making the effort of trying. If Kayla was going to block him out, then he wouldn't even bother getting his best friend back, even if she was his remedy.

Kayla was completely obliterated. She never slept and stayed in her room all day. She considered dragging a blade to her skin, but refused; she never liked showing physical signs of weakness, especially when the scars wouldn't ever fade.

She didn't need things to heal themselves; she needed to be numb, oblivious to any feeling, any pain. Hell, she'd rather be an emotionless zombie if the pain would remain unfelt.

Her dad started drinking again and was never home. He'd be out at bars getting wasted, choosing alcohol over his own flesh and bones. Despite his constant drowsiness, he always managed to remember one thing— to pay the bills. Even if Kayla was left behind, he wasn't trying to kill the girl. He felt the need to provide her with some essential, that being shelter.

Her older brother doesn't even want to see his little sister, because she lashed out at his girlfriend. Kayla pictured Gina as the Regina George of the real world— malicious and manipulative. Kayla knew Jack was wrapped around G's finger. What anyone said didn't matter, in the end it was still Gina's executive decision.

Her mother, Kayla didn't even have a mom anymore. She was gone a while ago, and no matter how hard Kayla tries to forget or numb the pain, a restlessness still settles in her heart— a gap that nothing can replace. Emptiness hurts. There's a burning sensation that never fades away and it's just a game, a luck based one— to see how long you could last before the pain decided to awake and disrupt the peacefulness, to see the longevity of the feeling's dormancy.

She pushed everyone away; she was fine, everything was okay. It was all a mind game. Vik, Gwen— they were all shoved aside. Kayla kept her head down at the floor, hair obscuring the view of her face, and kept on walking.

Gwendolyn and Kayla still kept in touch. They would Skype every weekend, text each other on a daily basis, and send humorous Snapchats to each other and continue their ridiculously long streaks. But when Kayla seemed to disappeared off the face of the earth, she knew something was up. Thing was, they were over three hundred miles apart and about a six hour drive away. As long as Kayla ignored Gwen, she wouldn't be able to keep in touch.

***

Vik sat there, bored out of his mind. If Kayla was in school, which she wasn't, so it wouldn't matter anyway, they would discreetly pass a single sheet of paper back and forth. On the folded slip could be anything imaginable, random drawings, absurdly long words, such as "floccinaucinihilipilification," various handwriting styles, and once they tried having a conversation about going to a market and buying a radish, which turned out to be alive, all in the foreign language of French. Vik really tried hard to stifle his guffaws before the teacher shot him a look.

He looked at the seat beside him— empty. He couldn't help but to be concerned, what happened to Kayla? Vik knew for a fact that she was alive still, Kayla always left her 'Read' message notifications on and he could see that she checked the memo. She never bothered to respond, though.

After school, Vik walked by the park, the same one where the two of them ditched the Spring Fling to go to. A tuft of brown hair dancing with the wind in the distance caught his eye.

"Kayla?" he called, as he jogged over.

The brunette was asleep with her head resting the bumpy tree trunk. She looked calm and peaceful. He ran his fingers through the trunk's grooves and cracks while contemplating what to do. Vik hesitantly picked her up gently and carried her home like china that was going to shatter at any given a point, to ensure that she stayed safe.

He laid her down on her bed and backed away slowly to the doorway of her room. Kayla stirred restlessly and her eyelids fluttered. Vik watched, petrified, as tears came streaming down her cheeks. Her eyes opened as she shot up from her previous lying position spontaneously.

"Kayla!" Vik shouted, running to her bed.

She had finally broken, after all the bending and contortions. All of her emotions that were bottled up inside, were finally released. The dam gave way and there was no way of stopping the incoming deluge of water.

"I'm okay! I'm okay. I'm okay..." she sobbed.

Vik didn't what to do in situations like these. Was he supposed to comfort her? Should he keep his distance? Lillian rarely cried, in fact, Vik couldn't recall an occasion where he watched his sister break down.

"Kayla," Vik said soothingly, after making up his mind, "you're okay. You're safe here. Everything will be alright."

"No, it won't. Nothing good ever lasts for long," Kayla bawled.

Vik didn't respond; Kayla was right.

−−−−−

I AM SO SORRY AND IT'S OKAY IF YOU HATE ME FOR NOT UPDATING BECAUSE HONESTLY, I HATE MYSELF FOR PUTTING THIS TO THE SIDE AND NOT GOING TO MY COMPUTER AND TYPE. i have a story in the works right now coming up that i'm trying to prewrite a little of:

   - Letters From a Lover, it will be a short story, mostly completely prewritten before it's published.

I have written a plot line already, so it's a very likely candidate for a work that I will complete.

Anyways, thank you all for reading and not yelling at me to update, even though you should have.