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T O B E T R U S T E D
( chapter fifteen )
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* . °•★| Following her mother's appearance, Lyla barely left her room. Her sudden desire for isolation was partly due to fear of her mother finding her again, and partly from the fact that she was at a loss of what she would do if she did leave. The feeling of loneliness had been seeping in ever since Jared left, him seemingly being the first lost friend of many. Bella and her still hadn't spoken since their fight, but Brian had told her about Charlie's worry after his daughter upped and flew to Italy without warning. She hadn't seen Jake since he'd joined Sam and the others. As far as she knew, Jess still wanted nothing to do with her anymore, which meant Quil's company was also out of the question. Lyla knew that Paul was still there for her, but she also knew that he couldn't be, not if she wanted any chance to redeem herself with Jess. She didn't want to lose him, in fact, it hurt her more than it should have to even think about him not being apart of her life, but it was selfish of her to keep their friendship, and she'd already been far too selfish. It was a moment of weakness when she called him from outside the diner, and when she asked him to stay.
"Lyla." Her uncle sighed as he entered her room, seeing her still curled up in her bed, as she had been all weekend. "You can't keep this up. Either you need to give me a valid reason for never leaving you bed again, or you have to go to school."
"All these years, I've been wishing for her to come back." Lyla muttered hoarsely, her throat sore from lack of use. "And now here she is, but all I can wish for now, is for my friends to come back. Because she was gone, she means nothing anymore, but they were always there, and now their gone."
"What are you talking about?" Brian asked in confusion, having no clue what she was murmuring about.
She turned to him, her eyes dulled and her face thin and pale. "My mom's back."
The information obviously caught the scruffy man off guard.
"Oh-uh, wh-why didn't you tell me?" Brian asked, his voice tense as he looked down, trying to think of the right way to handle this situation.
Lyla shrugged. "You've taken care of me for years, even though I wasn't yours to take care of. I guess I just didn't want to bother you with my issues as well."
It wasn't the truth. Lyla was actually worried that Brian would see Elizabeth's return as an opportunity. He'd never wanted kids, but he got stuck with Lyla out of obligation to his dead brother, there had never been another option because of Elizabeth running away, but now she was back, and part of Lyla was terrified that her uncle would want to pass her back to her mother.
"Lyla, your issues are my issues. They always will be. We're family, and she lost any right to be included in our little family the minute she left town." Brian told Lyla, his voice angry yet passionate.
Lyla smiled slightly, tears pricking her eyes at the words. "Thank you, for always being there for me, and putting up with me for so long." She chuckled at the end, Brian laughing under his breath too.
"No problem, kiddo." He shook off, neither of them had ever been ones for sentiment. "Next time you see your mother, send the old cow my way, I'll give her a swift kick out of town."
Lyla laughed again, her uncle's completely serious threat surprisingly making her feel much better.
"Stay in bed all you want, kid. I wouldn't want to risk seeing her either." Brian nodded, turning to leave.
"No, I can't keep hiding. I should go back to school, i've already missed a lot." Lyla sighed, referring to her days off after Harry's death.
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Lyla stuck by her word, albeit hesitantly, and returned to school the next day, it was Wednesday, and her first day back since Harry's heart attack, the weekend before the one just gone. People's eyes followed her around school, no doubt the whispers of both her presence when Harry passed and the scene she made at the diner when Elizabeth showed up had spread around town.
"Hey, Lyla!" A voice called out, and Lyla turned to face the girl who's name she didn't even know.
"Yeah?" Lyla replied, drawing up her pretence of indifference and boredom.
"Is it true you were hooking up with Jess's boyfriend behind her back?" The girl asked without hesitation, the air-headed impression she gave clearly unintentional, but impossible not to notice.
"No, is it true that you're a nosy bitch because you have no life of your own?" Lyla asked rudely, not that she cared, she couldn't believe the nerve of the girl, and she had no patience given what she'd been dealing with lately.
The girl looked taken aback, quickly scurrying back to her friends. Lyla rolled her eyes before continuing down the hall, paying no mind to the idiotic students who watched her. Her mind was spinning with what possessed the girl to ask such a question, her gut twisting as horrible theories arose in her head.
As she approached her locker, she noticed one group of air-headed and shallow girls in her grade were crowded around the area, letting out fake laughs that were far too shrill to give the desired affect of being cute.
"Excuse me." Lyla said in a dull tone.
"What?" A girl with a face full of makeup asked her, jutting her hip out and placing her manicured hand on it, smirking to her friends as if proud of her bitchy attitude.
"You're blocking my locker." Lyla informed with an obviously fake sweet smile.
"Oh, really? That's a shame... But I fail to see how it's my problem." The girl spoke, earning more annoying laughs from her friends.
"So, you're stupid as well as fake? Wow, you really have nothing going for you. Move." Lyla retorted with gritted teeth.
"I'm fake? Coming from the girl who was sneaking around behind her best friend's back with a guy that she knew was off limits." The girl sneered. "What do you think about that, Jess?"
Lyla's eyes widened a fraction as Jess took her place beside the girl, but she quickly schooled her expression into a cold and indifferent look.
"Honestly? I'd say she's the one with nothing going for her, who wants a disloyal, loudmouthed bitch with mommy issues?" Jess spoke harshly, her sweet self nothing but a memory.
The insult pierced Lyla's heart, hatred swelling in her gut - not at Jess, but at the words. Maybe they were true. Maybe she deserved this. Nonetheless, Lyla refused to show her hurt, her anger flaring as a shield.
"Wow, Jess. Finally grown a back bone, huh?" Lyla asked, bitterness flooding her tone, and cruel satisfaction hit when she saw the girl flinch. "It's a shame you're wasting it being just another lackey to a dim-witted, shallow cow."
She felt the tension rise, bitchy smirks turning to glares.
"Anyway, if my locker is the new 'place to be', I'll leave you girls to it, school's overrated anyway." Lyla dismissed, before changing her tone to mimic the girls' high-pitched annoying voices. "Toodles."
She could feel the glares of the girls behind her as she walked away, but she couldn't bring herself to care, instead heading to the library to do some studying alone rather than going to her lessons, knowing it would be filled with similar comments. Lyla had always known that high school girls were bitchy, but her and Jess had always rolled their eyes at the ones who'd fallen into step with the shallow stereotype. To see Jess sink to their level made Lyla furious, not at her old friend, but at herself for letting it happen - for being the reason it happened.
The day passed quickly, Lyla spending the hours catching up on work she'd missed, but sooner than she would have liked, lunch time rolled around. Part of her wanted to stay in the library, wanting refuge from the hell that awaited her in the cafeteria, but she'd hidden out all day, and if she didn't face them now, she never would, and then they win.
She walked with her head held high, her face decorated by a bored expression. Lyla was aware of every eye on her as she entered the cafeteria, the whispers swirling around her like a whirlpool threatening to suck her in and drown her. But she knew how to swim.
She sat herself down at her, Jess and Jared's old table, not really caring that she was alone, she'd never been embarrassed of her independence like many others seemed to be.
A throat cleared from across the table in front of her, but she continued to sit, picking at her lunch and staring down at her phone.
"You're in our seats." Jess's voice finally made her look up, the girl trying to mimic the bitchy, confident look her new friends wore.
"Really? Wow, i'm so sorry, I didn't see your names on them, an honest mistake." Lyla spoke sarcastically, making no move to leave as the girls had clearly intended.
"You need to leave." The girl from earlier demanded.
"I'm sorry, who actually are you?" Lyla asked bluntly. "It's just, you speak to me as if you're some important person, but I really have no clue who you are."
"I'm Tina." The girl ground out through gritted teeth, her cheeks burning red.
"Hmm, doesn't ring a bell. Anyway, have a nice lunch, I hope you don't choke." Lyla quipped, turning back to her phone and food, clearly insinuating that it was them who needed to leave.
"I don't think you're quite getting it, Lyla. These are our seats." Jess snapped. "You need to go."
"Well, I don't think that's necessary." Lyla gasped, putting a hand to her chest to mock taking offence. "I mean, there are clearly enough seats for all of us."
"Stop being such a bitch!" Jess screeched, loosing her patience.
"See, I remember the days when you would applaud me for my attitude." Lyla laughed. "You'd be sat beside me, laughing. Oh, how times have changed."
"And whose fault is that?" Jess snarled.
"Mine." Lyla admitted openly. "I ruined our friendship, I know that, and I'm sorry." She continued, her attitude melting away and revealing only sincerity. "But, you are responsible for the way you act, and if you paused to look at the person you're becoming right now, I doubt you'd be very impressed."
"Did you ever actually care?" Jess suddenly asked.
"What? Are you kidding?" Lyla responded in surprise. "Of course I cared, Lyla. I didn't do what I did because I didn't care about you, it was for my own messed up reasons, that had nothing to do with you. I was selfish, and I'm sorry, but I can't take any of it back."
Jess didn't reply, just stood staring at the floor.
"Don't let her talk her way out of this, Jess. You know what she really is: a stupid, attention-seeking whore. That's all, she's just jealous of girls like us, she always has been." Tina spoke, her glare fixed on Lyla but her manipulative words meant for Jess.
"Oh, shut up, Tina." Lyla scoffed. "Look, Jess, the way I see it, you can either forgive my mistake and stop pretending to be someone other than the amazing person I know you are; or you can keep walking down this path, but I'm not going to stick around if this is the person you're going to choose to be."
"Do you actually believe it was a mistake, though? What you did? Because I don't know if I can believe that, because normally when people make a mistake and don't like the consequences, they avoid making the mistake again." Jess began, tears in her eyes glittering with hurt and anger. "But when I was at the diner on Friday, coming to check on you, and after having a go at your mother on your behalf, I saw you getting into that 'mistake's truck."
"Jess-" Lyla began, her eyes wide and guilt consuming her.
"No, you can preach at me about how I should be ashamed of how i'm acting, but you should take a good look in the mirror, because you sure as hell aren't perfect." Jess seethed.
"I know, I know that, Jess. That's how it's always been. You've always been perfect, and i've always been the one to mess up and make people hate me. But it was never meant to be you who hates me. It was never meant to be you who saw how messed up I really am. You always saw the good, what happened to that?" Lyla whispered back.
"I guess I got sick of seeing good that's not actually there." Jess answered coldly, before leaving, with her new posse of girls following behind her.
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I feel like this chapters a bit cringe, but I wanted to show both sides of Lyla's life, the mundane and the part affected by the supernatural.
Anyway I've literally just edited and posted like ten chapters, just so the story is out there.
I hope you enjoyed!
xxx