What's Left Of Katelyn Degray

TWO / BEAUTIFUL

IT WASN'T UNTIL

  I woke up the very next day and went to school, still continuing to skip breakfast and ignore dad and Lou — that I realized I was overthinking things. And that the case of the girl who had gone missing was none of my business.

So I stopped caring.

While fiddling with one of the earbuds that went to my earphones in class, a girl snatched the other half that was in my ear suddenly, "What are you listening to?" she beamed. To which I took it right back from her in less than five seconds, "Why do you care?" I questioned the girl in an annoyed tone.

"Because," She emphasized. "You're my boyfriend!"

I sat there in confusion for a while until our teacher barged in, quieting everyone down to give a dreading assignment to us. Whilst interrupting my conversation with a girl in my class, who I then remembered to have a locker next to in my freshman year. She was a peppy brunette-who, for a short while, I also remembered seeing at one of the school's football games. She was a cheerleader, obviously. But rumors and snobby gossip girls say she quit after a couple of weeks due to some pretty personal stuff. I still wonder what exactly was that personal stuff.

"We'll talk later, Sam." She waved her way to her seat.

I didn't say nor do anything except stare into my notebook while our teacher passed out papers I assumed to be a test or quiz, once in a while glancing back at her, only to be unsurprised by a happy wave and a beaming smile. "Weird," I mumbled under my breath, she reminded me of my sister, Louisa.

Except she was a bit paler, peppier, and thinner than Lou. I didn't know her name, but she looked like a Sally, or something. Then, the next time I saw her was after school.

"Hey, Sam." She walked up to me on the sidewalk while I made my way farther from the school, grinning like an idiot.

I sighed in irritation, "Hi, Susan."

"You know, my name's Opal Lewis, not Susan." She pouted.

"Opal?" My eyes widened.

"You're opalwinggs77?" I could barely believe it. The girl I had tried so hard to ignore the whole entire day was actually my girlfriend on Battle Crushers? "Unbelievable, right? I know it is. But by the way, my real name's not Opal though." She said with an even bigger grin than before, so much to the point that it was starting to get annoying.

"It's Lola, so call me Lo."

I shook my head in disagreement, "No thanks, I think I'll stick to Lola."

I walked up in front of her a little, facing her while walking backward. "Why'd you lie about your name anyway?"

She didn't answer me, instead, she shrugged still without saying anything.

"Ow, shit!" I heard a voice behind me.

Realizing that I had just bumped into a girl pretty hard, knocking all her books out of her hands and onto the ground of the sidewalk not too far from our school, where we were walking.

I turned around carefully, trying not to step on the girl's books. "Sorry," I kneeled down to try and help her pick them up.

"It's fine, you don't have to." She beamed a smile.
"N-no, uh, let me help you. I want to, I think." I stuttered.

If it was the day before yesterday, I would've kept walking. But there was something about those last two days that felt kinda different for me. Maybe it was the discovery of a certain missing girl whom I'd knew nothing about, or it was just the fact that I didn't feel oddly always tired for once in my life. "Um, okay." The girl said, still smiling at me.

She was beautiful.

So much that it'd be an understatement to say I had been mesmerized by her beauty. She was enthralling, from her straight brown hair that stopped at her shoulders — almost hanging over them, to her light pink colored lips that complimented her fair skin tone, and her strikingly beautiful brown eyes that fixated their gaze on me.

I gazed right back, except mine was more of a fascinated stare. "Um, excuse me?" She snapped me out of my thoughts.

She hadn't been staring at me at all, instead, it was vice versa.

"I'm good now, all my books are off the ground." She said, gesturing to the mix of notebooks, textbooks, and papers both blank and full that she held in her arm, once scattered on the ground. "I'm good now, you can go. Thanks again."

"Oh, s-sorry." I stuttered once again. "Yeah, no problem." I mentally face-palmed myself at my stupid way of saying things. Was I nervous?

"Bye! Thanks, again!" She ran off to the opposite way of Lola and I, heading to our school's bus.

"So she takes the bus, huh?" I slightly smirked.
"Looks like it, come on." Lola quickly answered, even though she knew it was a rhetorical question, grabbing my arm so we could continue walking.

By the time we had got to my house, there were no cars parked in the driveway.

"No parents?" Lola questioned.

"Nah, my dad's at work and my sis probably went out to get drunk with her friends or something." I shrugged and opened the door.

Lola questioned again, "Was the door unlocked?" I answered her with an eye roll and showed her my keys.

I wasn't exactly sure why I took her to my place. We were sorta together anyway, but I wasn't exactly sure if online relationships were supposed to work that way. Either way, there was an awkward tension between us.

"Do you think Katelyn's really missing?" Lola suddenly asked.

"Wait, Katelyn?" I asked, eyeing her in a confused way. "What, do you know something about that girl?"

Lola shook her head, "No, it's just I've seen her before. That girl that you bumped into— I don't know her name, but she sorta looked like her."

I knew what Lola was saying wasn't true, it couldn't have been. The Katelyn that I heard went missing didn't even have an appearance, no one knew who she was, no one saw her at school, and before she was even mentioned on the news, no one even knew her name.

She was probably invisible for all I knew, I had tried to forget about the mystery. But that day just made me start all over again.