Lauren hopped out of her mother’s Cadillac and carefully walked into the house. She rummaged through her purse and pushed her pink-coated house keys into the lock.
It clicked open and she went inside. Her footsteps echoed in the giant front room and up through the winding stairwell.
She walked up the marble stairs and turned left at the top of the stairwell. She opened her wooden bedroom door and smiled widely as she stood in the doorway.
Lauren’s bedroom was like it was made for a princess. She had a silver framed bed that was concealed by a pink and purple canopy, and the floor was covered in a white rug. Her walls were a pale pink and a desk stood in the corner.
She sighed proudly and flopped onto her bed.
She sat at her desk and turned on her pink laptop. She logged onto her Facebook and read through the news feed.
Her heart caught in her throat when she saw that it was filled with messages that contained her name. [i]Heard that Lauren Davis is back, god help us... Looks like the queen bee is didn’t fall off the Eiffel Tower after all… Who would go to Paris for only a YEAR? She’s got to be crazy…Lauren swallowed hard and logged off the computer. She sank heavily into her computer chair.
Tears sprung to her eyelids. She looked up at her ceiling and tried to hold them back. She grabbed a tissue from her desk and blotted her eyes.
How could they have such sharp tongues? How can they make accusations like that? They haven’t seen Lauren in a year.
In homeroom the next day, all Lauren could think about were the fiery words she read about herself on the internet.
She quietly kept to herself during homeroom, being careful to avert everybody’s eyes.
During lunch break, she sat with Megan, Taylor and Sierra. They ate silently. Megan poked her salad with a fork.
“Okay, enough with the silent treatment! What’s going on with you girls?” Lauren imploded.
“We saw the messages… and didn’t really want to say anything.” Sierra spoke up.
“Oh… well, why not?” Lauren questioned, looking between her friends.
“I don’t know. We didn’t want to you know, make you angry or anything.” Taylor replied.
“Okay. I get it. You just don’t want me to turn against you, right? That’s it, you’re just making sure you don’t float outside your comfort zone.” Lauren snapped, grabbing her bag from the chair next to her.
“Find me when you come to your senses. ‘Kay?” Lauren rolled her eyes and stalked out of the cafeteria.
Lauren slipped into the bathroom and locked herself into a stall. Her heart raced and her breath was ragged.
She breathed deeply. Moments later, her phone buzzed in her pocket. She took it out and opened it. It was a text message, from an unknown sender. Cautiously, she clicked on it.
God, Lauren…
You’re such a drama queen, aren’t you? If you don’t chill, are you going to move back to Paris to de-stress? Or are you going to go somewhere else and never come back? I’d go with the second one. Then we’d never have to see your face again.
Hugs!
- L
Lauren quickly shut her phone. Where were these stupid messages coming from? Nobody knows her secrets except for Carrie. How could Carrie be sending everyone messages? She died a few years ago, didn’t she?
Lauren shook her head. Don’t think like that. No one knew if Carrie was dead. Carrie went missing two years ago.
She didn’t die. At least, no one thought she was dead.
Carrie had been Lauren, Megan, Sierra and Taylor’s best friend, before she mysteriously went missing the summer before ninth grade. Nobody has seen her since.
IF Carrie was the one sending the messages, then why hasn’t she come home yet? Where was she?
The walls started to blur a bit. Lauren struggled to steady herself then walked out of the bathroom with her head held high. She might look bullet proof, but she wasn’t fooling herself.
These messages were tearing her apart.
