Hold My Hand

Chapter 1

They went through it all in the past ten years. Middle school was the first time they met, and they absolutely hated each other. Laura was a preppy know-it-all in sixth grade, and Carmilla was a seventh grader who stuck to the outskirts of crowds and hung out under the trees on the playground instead of in the sun like most of the other students.

Of course, because of that she was very pale and the other girl was very tan. That was only the beginning of the many differences between them that were yet to be discovered.

When they first met, Carmilla instantly disliked Laura. It was just something about her. Something about the way she looked and acted around people rubbed her the wrong way. She was in a perpetual state of happiness and excitement--always ready to help out around the school--and she had an endless supply of friends. Carmilla spent most of her seventh grade year with her eyes on the sixth grader wondering what kind of alien she was, or what drugs she was on and where she could get some.

The day Carmilla found out that Laura wasn't an alien came on her last day of eighth grade--Laura's last day of seventh. She walked into the girl's locker room to unlock her locker for the last time to retrieve her gym bag, but paused when she heard sniffling.

The first thought that came to her head was that someone was doing coke. Her second thought was that she shouldn't assume the worst in everyone even if they might screw her over, and before she could come up with a third thought a flash of blonde hair was barreling into her.

"Oh, I'm so sorry! I totally wasn't looking where I was going, and-"

"No, it's okay, I was standing here for no reason, so it's my fault. Are you-," she interrupts the blonde girl quickly before she even takes the chance to really look at her, but when she does her words taper off and she falls silent. The girl is in tears.

And not the superficial 'I got dumped by my middle school boyfriend my life is over!' tears, real actual genuine misery was trying to gnaw its way under Carmilla's skin. It was radiating from Laura's eyes, but she couldn't look away. Her voice was soft and concerned when she found her words, and she didn't sound like her normal apathetic self at all.

"What's wrong?" Carmilla keeps her arms by her side as they stand a foot apart. Anything closer, or any movement in that direction, would break the moment for them both.

"Nothing- I'm- I'm fine." Despite the tears pouring from her eyes in unwavering streams, the girl cracked a smile that really was almost convincing, to Carmilla's amazement, but the pools of misery lying stagnant beneath her eyelids told a different story, and those stories were the ones Carmilla could read the best. Laura Hollis was not okay.

Her hand had a mind of its own as it tried to reach out for the upset girl, but before she could make contact, she was gone in another whirlwind flash, and with her went the belief that there are people who are always happy. A new idea formed in its place that maybe there are just people who are better at hiding their sadness.

--

High school snuck up on Carmilla like a panther on the hunt for fresh meat. She wasn't terribly bullied, but she didn't have any friends, because nobody cared to try--including Carmilla herself.

She didn't think of Laura very many times that year, though occasionally her mind would drift off to the last time she saw her, and she would wonder how she is now.

Primarily, though, her studies were her main focus. She ended up with all A's at the end of her freshman year because of that, which wasn't too big of a deal to her. Maybe some people would call that an acomplishment, but when you have little else to do but study and read, anything is possible.