Walter say what | Self-Para
Laciana hadn’t heard the intercom message. Not the first one, anyway. The young girl was in the school’s pool, the second time being in one in her life. The red head had just gained the courage to go underwater. While Miss. Hastings was requesting all the students to head to the auditorium, Lacey was at the bottom of the shallow side of the pool. Her tiny frame moving her arms and legs, as her dimpled cheeks puffed up, containing her air. She looked silly. She didn’t care. She was alone, and she was getting over one of her many fears. Coming back up for air, Laciana flipped her long, vibrant hair back. Taking deep breaths as she re balanced herself, she smiled. Suddenly, a voice roared into the pool room; The acoustics making the voice rattle in the walls. It started Lacey a little, but she could make out the words enough to understand what it meant.
“It’s important.” Lacey looked around, confused. There was no one else in the pool room who could explain to her what happened. “Fuck,” The girl said to herself, hitting the water with her fists in frustration. She was probably missing something. Climbing out of the pool as fast as she could, Lacey trotted over to her bag of stuff. She didn’t have time to get dress. Another swear escaped under the girl’s breath, as she tugged on her shorts. Throwing on her tank top, she grabbed her robe she had brought earlier, wrapping it around her body.
Swiftly walking into the hallways, she noticed quickly it was empty. “Really!?” She questioned, walking down the halls until she heard a lot of noise coming from the auditorium. Quietly opening the door, the barefooted girl stumbled upon something she would never believe. Walter Disney was standing on the auditorium stage. He was there. Laciana’s heart raced, as she wiped her hair on her robe sleeve, so she wouldn’t leak pool water everywhere.
“You are all going home.”
The words hit her like a bus, and by the time Lacey had found a seat, students were already getting up to leave. She looked around, with her mouth gaping open a little. They were going home. Part of her wanted to jump up and do a back flip, while the other half wanted to curl up and hope they couldn’t find her when they try to leave later. A lot of good things happened for her at Walter Prep, or because of it. Lacey had gotten up on stage in front of a crowd, fixed things with her ex, and learned a little bit more about life than she could’ve in Notre Damia. A lot of terrible things also took place. Losing one of her best friends, ending someone’s life, having hers nearly taken, being forced upon sexually, developing a drug problem, watching her boyfriend cheat on her with another girl… Lacey crinkled her nose at all the bad thoughts. They outweighed the good ones by far.
Standing up to make her way to the pool, Lacey sniffled a little. Her eyes stung from trying to open her eyes under water, so being upset didn’t help the slight pains in her eyes. She rubbed them as she exited the auditorium, dragging her bare feet as she manuevered her way back to where her stuff was.
No more than twenty four hours from that moment, she’d be on her way home. The place where it didn’t matter if you had everything, or if you had nothing. The place where her mother and father could protect her. The place where she didn’t have to worry about what would happen next. She could sleep in her own bed, and wake up to help her parents, just like usual. Things would go back to normal.
“Unless..” A nasty thought entered Lacey’s mind. The words of her boyfriend’s bitter thoughts rang in her mind, the ones where he told her that her parents weren’t important. Laciana looked back at the auditorium, and her heart sank. Her parents weren’t portrayed at Disney. It was all sinking in. Laciana was the daughter of a maid and a personal cook.
Her heart and her head bickered with themselves, as she couldn’t decide if going home would make her as happy as she’d hoped.