Lost & Found

01: Pieces.

A crack of sunlight illuminated the pieces of dust floating above me.  

My hand reached out, playing with the glimmer of daylight. 

I was lucky. My bedroom window was always the first room in the house to capture the light of day.

It's simple moments like these that left me feeling content. Like the world around me was a masterpiece to observe and appreciate.

A thought trickled into my mind. My spirit was set ablaze. Rejoicing, I threw my arms and legs up into the air, tossing my blanket out of the way. It was the first day of the summer break. Not only that, I was officially free from high school. 

Unlike most it seems, I actually enjoyed high school. Sure, there were dramas and the workload was tough, but overall it was pretty alright. Despite this, being free from high school was liberating. A milestone achieved. A checkpoint to the world of endless possibilities reached. 

I took a breath in and stretched, still lying in my bed. The house was calm, the only sound was of the faint waves crashing from the beach a small distance away. I loved this feeling; the feeling of having nothing to worry about. The feeling of utter relaxation and happiness. 

My life was simple. And I loved it. 

Well, it was simple all except a few things.

Firstly, my parents weren't really my parents. They adopted me.

Secondly, I couldn't remember anything before being at the orphanage. No matter how much I would want to reach back and retrieve those times past, my memories would always turn into a foggy haze. My head would hurt, and I'd have a headache for a while. 

I didn't know who my true parents were. Where I came from. The doctors said it was amnesia caused by some trauma or head injury. I was told that what mattered was now, not the past.

So now that's how I lived my life. Living for the present, not being tormented by the past.

Then my moment of calm and thinking was interrupted by shouting.

"ELAINE-YYYYYY!" 

The sing-song yelling seemed to be coming from downstairs. There was only one person I knew who would bother me on a warm momentous Saturday morning. 

Yasmine. My utterly, annoying but awesome no-care-in-the-world best friend, Yasmine. 

Thank goodness my parents were out at the local farmers' market. If they were still asleep... let's just say that Yasmine would get a stern talk from my parents... and probably her own parents, too.

Hearing quick steps up the wooden staircase, I sat up. My bedroom door was to explode as Yasmine comes tumbling in, in three, two, one--

"Good morning!" greeted Yasmine in a roaring voice, the poor door instantly thrown open. "It's summer! We're free citizens of society! Time to par-tay!" She jumped onto my bed, fist-pumping the air. 

I laughed, stretching one last time. Yasmine was a silly girl who just did everything to her own will. We've been friends ever since she moved to the house around the bend of our street, almost a year after I moved in.

"Well, good thing that the sun is shining today, or else I would have kicked you out by now," I said, lifting myself off my bed to my wardrobe. "How did you let yourself in, anyway?"

Yasmine sat cross-legged on my bed and spoke with a what did you expect? voice, "I used your hidden key under your entrance mat." I told Dad that hiding it in the most obvious place would be the worst idea. Well, at least now I have evidence. Then Yasmine squealed with excitement, "What are our plans for today?"