Happier

Chapter 4

The next few days would be hard on the Goldberg sisters. The girls stayed home with their dad and on the first day, the day after the accident, they sat around the house and watched movies or locked themselves up in their rooms to cope with their grief by themselves. Their house is big enough to avoid everyone anyway. On the second day, they tried to empty their mom's closet and give some of the things away to charity or keep some. They failed terribly at that. So they tried again on the third day. By day four, they'd take the bags filled with their mother's clothes to the town hall. On day five, they attend the funeral. Lacey hadn't talked to her friends yet, but still, all four of them attended the funeral. That's the first time Archie or even Melanie and Violet saw Lacey cry. Hugs she didn't accept, nor words. She just gave them a smile and moved on from the second darkest day of her life. 

On Wednesday, day six after the accident, Lacey went back to school. Stacey stayed home. It was going to be tough, but she had to go back at some point. The moment she walks onto the school yard, she sees her friends in the same spot as always, but this time she doesn't go to sit with them. Instead, she goes inside to try and find coach Rivers. 

"Lacey!" the familiar voice of her boyfriend shouts behind her. She halts in the middle of the hallway and turns around. It'd be better if she'd just walked on and ignored him, but something in his voice made her stop. "How are you feeling?" he asks once he and the others are caught up to her. Lacey takes in a deep breath to make sure she doesn't cry in front of them. She opens her mouth, but nothing comes out of it. So as an alternative of words, she grabs his face and kisses him on the lips. When she pulls away, Archie has to blink a couple of times before he can comprehend what had just happened. 
"I'm fine. I just need to go to coach Rivers for a moment to talk about something," she finally finds the words without crying. Archie just nods while Melanie and Violet give each other a quizzical look. Before Lacey can escape and turn around, Violet stops her. 
"What are you going to talk about?" she asks. Lacey's small, fake smile faltered and then faded.
"You're not going to quit the Roosevelt Roses, are you?" Melanie questions. The brown eyes that resembled her mother's avert from the group. Now isn't a good time to look them into the eyes. They'd be dissapointed, maybe mad. And she was right.
"WHAT?" yells Violet, "Lace, just because your mother dies doesn't mean you have to quit cheerleading," her words sound a lot more harsh than intended and she knows. Her eyes grow darker and her face falls. "Oh my God, I'm so sorry, Lace," she whispers, her hands covering her mouth in light shock. Surprisingly, Lacey's eyes aren't filled with tears, more so with anger.
"You wouldn't know, would you, V? You still have your mother," and instead of turning around and going to coach Rivers, she pushes past her friends. For just a moment, she feels as if she's part of a movie and everything is going in slow motion with badass music playing in the background. Once she's finally outside, she feels tears threatening to spill. She sits down on the concrete steps for a moment, trying to calm down and stop herself from crying. 
"Are you okay there?" a voice she hasn't heard before startles her.
"Yeah, I'm fine," she says with a couple tears rushing down her face, only noticing them now and quickly wiping them away. Maybe he didn't see them.  
"You don't seem fine," the boy says as he sits down next to her. Lacey turns her head to look at the boy and when she sees the beanie hat and the dark brown hair, she's in shock of how beautiful his face and eyes are. She notices the freckles on his cheeks and how blue his eyes are. "I'm okay," she tells him, managing to give him a small smile.
"I'm Cole. Cole Steward," he introduces himself while holding out his hand for her to shake. She looks at it for a second, then shakes it with a smile. 
"I'm La-"
"Lacey Goldberg, I know," he cuts her off, a small smile tugging at his lips. Lacey looks a little surprised, but then chuckles, "You're the head cheerleader and basically the queen of this school, everyone knows you," he tries to get away with being a little creepy. He knows about the death of her mother. It's the number one trending topic around school. He doesn't want to bring it up though. It's a tough topic. At least now she's talking to him.
"Right, yeah, that's all I am lately," Lacey says with a sigh. For some bizarre reason, she doesn't mind Cole seeing her true colours. She doesn't mind being emotional with him next to her. Maybe it's the blue eyes or maybe it's the smile. Maybe it's his voice or his presence. Maybe it's just something she needs to figure out.
"How about," Cole then starts after a couple of seconds of silence, "we skip school and go for some burgers? I think you need some cheering up from whatever you were upset about," he tells her and it almost sounds like a demand. Lacey looks at the boy in front of her and into his blue eyes. They're dark, but light up when Lacey nods her head.
"You have a car, right?" he asks as he gets up and reaches his hand out to pull Lacey up.
"Yeah, I do," the blondie replies whilst wiping the dust off of her butt.
"Alright then, let's go," and with those words, Cole and Lacey hop into her car and drive to the nearest diner where they sell burgers this early in the day. Maybe something good might come from something bad after all.