Always & Forever (D. Swing)

Chapter 83.

April, 2008.

West Mecklenburg High School. The place where everything was left behind. Whether people believe it or not, it is a school where people are supposed to learn specific topics and acquire abilities that could be useful to society, but each and everyone's story there always gets overshadowed with drama. Though, it can be argued that was Charlotte and North Carolina for anyone period. Twenty years passed by and it was still the same. When people were given the opportunity to leave, they flew out. If people were given the opportunity to stay, they'd normally fall into depression desperately wanting to be anywhere but this dump. But the most heartbreaking scenario didn't have anything to do with mass murders committed by angry teens who just wanted to be heard like the ones in the past. This scenario was just a pair of kids who killed each other emotionally and spiritually.

Staring in the mirror of a hotel at herself stood the thirty-eight year old woman who finally returned back to the state she promised to never return. But it was impossible for her to miss an opportunity like this when her best friend, Vonda, desired to know more about her past despite knowing her for almost ten years, stalking her Facebook account and somehow being able to trace back the remains she wanted to keep sacred. After discovering such a past and where she came from, noticing an upcoming twenty year high school reunion was around the corner, she urged the lonesome woman to go out there to visit her old home. She found it odd Devyn never mentioned anything of her past life and that's the mere reason why she did a background search on her. From the mounted walls built around her, Devyn appeared emotionless, having no one with her and no close people to her she communicated with daily. And the only way to get Devyn out of that miserable hole was a lot of convincing over the few months.

Reluctantly, she runs her delicate fingers through her roots. She can feel them beginning to sweat as nervousness and anxiety forms. Truth is, she didn't actually want to be here and she thought about leaving to go elsewhere, but Vonda has this tracking device on her making sure she stays here. "Stupid girl is always making me do something." She exhales sharply, pulling down the sides of her dress to keep herself covered. The insecurity never went away, but she did well with hiding it over the years. Devyn actually did well with hiding many things and keeping them repressed—back to the old motto she had in the seventies up to the mid eighties.

"Okay, the plan is to come through the band hallway and into the gym, speak to some people, have a drink, and then leave." She speaks to herself in the mirror pointing a finger. "You got that?" She questions before nodding to herself. "I don't want to be here as much as you don't either. I have business to do too." She rolls her eyes. Exhaling sharply again, she grabs her small purse wrapping it around her wrists before exiting the rented room Vonda got her.

As soon as she made it to the building she solemnly swore she'd never see again, she thought about traveling through the back doors like she always did whenever she arrived in the early morns when she actually went here. She didn't quite know this school so much anymore and wasn't sure if they had improved in security; not wanting to take the risk of being falsely accused of intrusion. Feeling the warm air that circulates in the gym, the internal pain of throwing up overtakes every bone in Devyn's body. Being face to face with her classmates again for the first time in twenty years is overbearing. She'd be seeing people who honestly had no impact on her life and others that have made her life a living hell.

Awkwardly making her way through the semi-crowded 'dance floor' raging with hits of the eighties, she attempts her best not to make her presence conspicuous. Observing everyone around her, she deciphers different faces of the night as they laugh and greet one another as if nothing changed once everyone graduated. How she wished she could relate to that sense of being sociable and being able to rekindle old situationships with old kin. But she was too closed off, too numb and careless to even have an after thought of putting forth effort in communication. She didn't care too much about a lot anymore. No one but herself which took her long to develop.