One month later...
"Lolo, I'm gonna go to the bathroom. Can you watch my swing?" Lucy asked, slowing her swing down with her feet as she waited for her wife to agree.
"Okay," Lauren nodded, grabbing the chain of the swing next to her own and tugging it close, showing anyone who tried to take it that it was already taken.
Lucy skipped away, leaving Lauren to quietly hum to herself and she softly swung with the toes of her dusty school shoes.
As she got lost in her thoughts, as she often does, the sudden removal of the chain from her hand brought her back to reality. She looked beside her to see that the mean boy from the second grade was beginning to swing in Lucy's swing, seeming completely unfazed by how he managed to get onto the play item by snatching it away from the kindergartener's hand.
"'xcuse me," Lauren said nervously, still rather shy about talking to other people.
"What?" The boy snapped out, making the little girl flinch.
"That's Lucy's swing."
"It's mine now," the boy stated, swinging higher.
"But, 'ucy's comin' back."
"UCY'S COMIN BACK," the boy mocked in a loud, obnoxious tone that made Lauren shy away.
"Please," she whispered.
"I have an idea," the boy said, jumping off the swing and reaching into her pocket. "Why don't you give me your swing too or I can kill you?" He suggested, pulling out a black toy gun.
Lauren panicked the second she saw the item in his hands. The five-year-old was unaware that the boy held a toy, one that most likely contained water, that wouldn't hurt her. All she saw was Mr. Rob and his gun that he held up to her and her baby sister so many times when they lived with him. She heard the familiar popping sound that made her ear ache for weeks, and suddenly she wasn't on her swing anymore but much rather on the pebbled ground, screaming and sobbing so loudly the entire playground went silent.
A teacher who was supervising the playset was instantly by the child, trying to calm her down to no avail.
"What happened?" the woman asked the boy who was no longer looking on with a menacing glare. He was more shocked by the reaction that Lauren had.
"She fell off the swing," he stated, hiding his toy gun back in his pocket. No way was he going to get in trouble today.
"Sweetheart, I need you to calm down. Did you hit your head?" The woman asked the panicking girl who began to choke on her sobs as she laid flat on her back on the playground floor.
"Lolo," Ally called out, running for her sister and first grade teacher with Hailee close behind, her best friend having watched the whole scene play out up until Lauren fell backwards off the swing and began to panic making her run to where Ally was playing hopscotch.
"Ally, I'm going to need you to give your sister some room," the teacher said.
"Ms. Mitchell, I know how to calm her down."
"I don't want to move her until I know how badly she hit her head," Ms. Mitchell explained, noticing that the boy ran off suddenly.
"Lauren isn't crying cause she hit her head," Hailee said, speaking up to her teacher. "Andrew was holding a gun to her and she got scared."
Ms. Mitchell silently groaned, realizing that the boy had lied to her and now ran off since he knew he'd get in trouble if he got caught.
"Okay, I'm going to bring Lauren inside. Ally, I need you to help me calm her down while I call your moms okay?"
YOU ARE READING
The Story of Our Life
Hayran Kurgu"There's something about wanting to protect a person that is hurting more than you that takes away the pain of losing your baby." Normani and Dinah love their little family. But something was missing. Something that could only be filled by the love...
