Lena tugged at her mini-skirt as the cold northern wind bit at her exposed skin. She pulled her hood up closer around her face and heaved her book bag up her shoulder a little as she waited for the bus. It was her first time back to school since her breakdown.
Her fingers seemed to navigate their way to the scars on her neck all their own. They ran over it lightly and absorbed every crease and edge of the slightly subsiding scars. She thought about the things she had felt. The things that had eventually torn her apart. She had felt so helpless and abandoned, like she hadn't belonged in this time, this world. These where the thoughts that led her to her rock-bottom. These where the thoughts that had led her to her salvation. Her thoughts where suddenly disturbed by a vibration from her pocket. She pulled out her cell phone and read the caller i.d. Chase, Love! it read and she quickly anwsered it.
"Hey!" she gushed into the phone.
"Hey! How are you holding up, baby-doll?" said a smooth male voice over the phone, one that seemed to ooze relief with ever word he said. "I know going back is gonna be rough. You know if you need me you can call me, right?"
"Chase, I'll be fine. I'm glad you called though. I needed to hear something wonderful before I faced the music," she said, her usual teasing tone gliding out of her along with a slight smile. She had met Chase in rehab. They had fallen in love and were reminders to each other of the love and care it took to smooth out the pain and malice of everyday life.
"I'm glad to hear you doing okay. If you need me to come pick you up or anything else, you just call me, okay?"
"Okay, Chase. I promise. I have to go now. The bus is coming," she said. She listened to the sweet sound of his good-bye before she clicked her phone shut and shoved it in her pocket. Lena pulled her hood up again as the bus grinded to a halt in front of her and she stepped onto the steps that had once forsaken her.
The suprise of her peers seemed to wash over her, easing the hurt that they had unintentionally caused her. Yes, school would be very interesting. But now that she had a reason to live, the stares passed through her and straight into the air. She was free.