Rayonnante - Paul Lahote

Chapter 3

She woke up in a good mood. Sure, she felt a little sore from sleeping on the couch instead of her comfortable mattress, but it was nothing that a little stretching couldn't fix. Which is exactly what she did before heading towards the shower. It was already nine thirty, and Kim and her had agreed to meet up at Sam's place at one o'clock. It's not like she needed to hurry all that much, but she did want to make a good impression. She used her favorite clementine shower gel and passionfruit shampoo, making sure to also exfoliate thoroughly. She always ended up smelling like a tropical fruit basket, which she personally liked a lot.

Lena then changed into a butter yellow sweater and jeans. She'd never been good at doing her hair, which is why she left it as it was after it dried. She always envied the girls who were able to do those gorgeous French braids on themselves, or to use a curling iron. She'd tried so many times and it always ended up looking a bit ridiculous. The only hairstyles she could actually somewhat succeed were a ponytail and a regular braid. She did her brows, added mascara and put on some raspberry scented tinted lip balm. It was the best that it was going to get, so she left it at that.

Her room was at the back of the house, with a window facing the forest where she could spend hours just looking outside at the lush greenery. While the walls were all painted white, Lena had tried to bring some pops of colors with her pale yellow comforter, colorful pillows and some plants. The painting of a grey wolf that Billy had given her was displayed proudly over her double bed. And old dresser and mirror faced the bed. She also had a small bookshelf in the corner right by her door, where she kept all of her favorite books.

Since she still had a lot of time before having to be at Sam's house, she decided to take out a novel to go read outside. Her aunt Hellen hadn't put much love into their backyard, something that the overgrown grass could attest to. There was no barbecue, no garden, hell, not even any real outdoor furniture save for two chairs that Lena had salvaged from a sidewalk a few months ago. She'd painted the Adirondack chairs bright red in an effort to brighten the space. That's where she decided to curl up with her book and a blanket for the next hour.

It was a little bit over twelve when she went back inside for a quick lunch. She'd exchanged some texts with Kim earlier to confirm that their study date was still on and to explain the location of the Uley residence. She felt incredibly giddy without being able to explain why. Sure, she liked her classmate a lot and she was happy to be hanging out with her today, but this felt different. More important, somehow.

She brushed her teeth and gathered her school supplies into her backpack, which was pink and had small sunflowers on it. She pondered for a moment about walking there instead of using her car, but decided that it'd probably be easier for her to use her vehicle if she got lost. The car was an old blue Nissan Versa that she'd bought with the money she'd saved from her summer jobs and a writing contest she'd won a year ago. Jacob had gone shopping for a used car with her since she didn't know much about them. He'd actually ended up making the final decision for her, saying that Japanese cars tended to be more resilient than their American counterparts. She smiled brightly as Crocodile Rock started to play on her car radio. She loved Elton John and had been listening to his album Don't Shoot Me I'm Only the Piano Player on repeat for the past few weeks.

It wasn't exactly complicated to find Sam's house since the reservation was so small. After driving down a small driveway surrounded by trees, she reached a lovely cottage that seemed to be straight out of a fairytale. She almost expected Snow White to emerge. She parked her car and got out, taking deep breaths to calm her nerves.

A gorgeous woman opened the door a few seconds after she knocked. She had perfectly arched eyebrows, gorgeous black hair and a warm smile. Lena wasn't too taken aback by her scars. While they were difficult to ignore, they also seemed to just fit her face perfectly, as if they'd always been there. She made sure to look her in the eyes and not focus on said wounds.