There was a girl and her name was Layla – a beautiful princess.

She's got green eyes and a little freckle under her eye, just like me.

Brown hair like mine and a toothy grin that could spread light to the whole kingdom.

However, her heart was dark. And that darkness conquered the light.

She was a nobody.

Another girl.

Just somebody who was born to be forgotten.

Alone.

A father who hated her. A mother who was amongst the stars. A brother who hadn't had the slightest idea.

Her only wish was to leave this world.

All she wanted was an escape.

She wanted to be one of the stars, littered in the ink-stained midnight sky, overlooking it all.

She just wanted to feel nothing, because what she felt was undescribably painful.

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Layla's POV:

I felt a tear cascade down my cheek and quickly turned around to wipe it off.

Everytime I look at Melanie, I just want to cry.

She looks like a dream.

Like my destiny.

And as she looks into the depths of my eyes, I know she understands my story. That I am Princess Layla.

I look at her with desperation in my heart and my eyes glistening.

And she gives me nothing.

The world shifts.

My heart is heavy with my morbid reality.

She isn't the one. It's not her.

She's not the one to save me.

Despite the fact that I'll be leaving this world soon, I still put on a smile.

I can't help it. Melanie, she's irenic. She brings me peace.

We are merely a living girl and a dead girl having a conversation.

So as I offer her the rest of my lunch, we sit there in silence, appreciating the fact that we are each other's serendipity. We found something good without truly looking for it.

Friendship.

***
Whenever I look at her I'm in reverie. She truly is a daydream. Especially the contrast between her pale skin and the warm summer heat.

We're walking through the meadow and take the long route to her house, which is ten minutes away from mine.

      "So, you have a brother?" Melanie whispers, her soft voice getting lost in the wisps of air wafting around us.

      "Yeah, and he's a year older than me, so your age. He'd probably find you cute." I giggle teasingly, appreciating Melanie's otherworldly beauty.

       "Gross, you do know boys have cooties, right!" Melanie exclaims, sticking her tongue out in disgust.

I just chuckle softly.

If only she met Charlie.

They'd be the best of friends.

Him, the darkness, and she, the light.

Ever-changing dynamics, soon she'll be the darkness, and he, the light.

Melanie plunged into the bed of tulips in the meadow.

      "Some place out there, lovers would have used these flowers as a way to declare their admiration for one another." I say as I lay down next to her and look into her mesmerising  eyes of coffee brown goodness.

      "Then allow me, Layla Waters, to gift you this tulip as a way to declare my utmost admiration for you," Layla plucks a yellow tulip out of the flower bed and hands it to me while speaking in a posh British accent, "Let this tulip be a symbol of our friendship, till death so cruelly does us part."

This girl is crazy.

Something about Melanie Hall, makes me want to live. Makes me want to keep going.

She gives me the incandescent will to live.

I– I guess I'll live, for Melanie Hall.

"Till death so cruelly does us part," I repeat.

I'm doing it all for Melanie Hall.

All for her.

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613 words
24/10/23