Derailed

 She walked into the fluorescent lit room but it just didn't look the same. It didn't feel the same. The smell was off and the smiles on her old friends faces seemed so fake. They were so distant. But if she was to be honest with herself they were never really her friends anyways. It was all an illusion. It was all a quick justification to her once being a loner. See deserved a friend. She deserved someone to understand. 
No...she didn't deserve any of that...
 And now here she is again, a loner, the way it was always meant to be. Maybe that's what she will always be. Especially now. Especially since he's gone. But she can't think about that even though it's constantly in the back of her mind. It's never left. Not for the past week as she lay in a daze, curled up in a cold waterbed that didn't even work. It was dead winter, and no matter how many blankets she padded up and wrapped around her it never kept out the bone aching chill. She just hasn't been able to figure out yet if the chill is from the cold  or her shredded heart. Since that frozen, gray day she's had a one track mind. And the train is derailing.
 She takes a step further into the room. A part of the floor creaks, welcoming her in a disturbing way and everyone glances from the corner of their eye, but not directly at her. That's how she knows they're all gone. That's how she knows her exile. All because of a boy. No he wasn't a boy. He was a wolf looking for a lamb, searching for his prey. And he found her. He found her, and cut her and then left her to lick her wounds. But he has other prey too. And all of these pretty girls are just following him to their own demise while they look at the lamb like it's the one to blame for bleeding. Like the wolf never did it. But she takes another step ignoring the awkward silence and subtle murmurs. Simply because as of late she's had worse things happen to her. So much worse than a lying boy that no longer means anything to her. It doesn't matter.
 As she steps her way to the front by the church alter where everyone else is practicing, laughing, and going over the same routine, precise moves she slips her shoes off. The carpet feels rough under her feet and she wiggles her toes into the fabric. She's been involved in this youth program for 3 years now, but no one even bothered to learn her name until this past fall. Remmie. That's her name. She knows it, but they didn't. 
It felt strange at first. She had always sat alone or with one of the youth leaders, that seemed to be the only one that would ever talk to her, and then suddenly she was surrounded by people laughing with her and inviting her to parties, get togethers, and bowling nights. She never liked bowling, but she never said anything either. Now she thinks that she should have.
 As everyone finally settles into the line to go over the dance once more for the church program coming up in a week she falls right in place. Maybe it will take her mind off of him. But as she finishes that first move she looks over at the one person left that seems to hold no judgment towards her (though it feels false) she idly wonders what Lynn really thinks. Lynn's face is blank...robotic, and as she catches her eye the blonde haired girl smiles. Do these people ever feel? Are they real? She looks towards the big double door she just walked through that would lead her right back out. And suddenly her legs burn to run. To just leave and never look back again. Se wants to run from the isolated loneliness that she feels in, above all places, this church. Weren't churches meant to fill voids, not leave them gaping? This is all fake! She can't dance when he's lying in the cold, wet, winter ground. Before she can really even allow her legs to do what they crave she's flying through the room and out the door the whole time telling herself "don't look back." The last thing she will ever remember about that church room is an echo of a voice from the blonde girl calling her name. Lynn was it?
 As she's running toward her final exit to get into her car and go back to her safe, unrelenting cold bed she stops for just a second as she sees the blur of a girl that she loves to hate in the final room by her exit door. The girl she hates is talking to a boy she recognizes from school, but Remmie has never actually talked to him herself. And he sure as hell never bothered going out of his way. Why should he? She's only a little above 5 foot, 100 pounds wet, with a different hair color each week. She blends easy. On purpose of course. She's made a talent of it. Remmie means to go unnoticed until the stupid girls eyes flicker to her face. The girl waves her into the room and introduces her to the boy.
 "Hi," the boy holds his hand. He's very ordinary looking with small eyes.
She looks at his hand and reluctantly accepts. "Hi."
And somehow with those two "hi's" they both end up in her car headed to the mall while Remmie secretly is still thinking about her bed and how she doesn't even know why he's here or what happened in the past five minutes to put her on this unsought road. He's not him, he's not him...she keep telling herself, as if she needs reminding. She know he's not him. No one can be.
 And what's even more fascinating is the fact that after they roam around the same place in the mall going in circle, after circle for hours as she mindlessly listens to this obnoxious boys babbling she actually agrees to go with him back to a place that he's been staying at. Why? She asks her self immediately, but it's as if something else is making her choices for her. She's just along for the ride. And after all of that if only she had known what place that would be, if she was asked again next time in another life or dimension, she wouldn't hesitate before she said okay for the second time.
 Simply because when she gets there and has to spend the next two hours trying to scoot further and further away from the obnoxious boy (she is glad they were strangers before now) while he tried to get closer and closer... during all that and right in the middle of a movie, and hell, and chaos, and an ice storm the covers the heart and soul, God dropped a blessing right in her life. He gave her a light for the darkness that surrounded her every single day.
 This guy walked into the room. The boy introduced them as she was laying back. Remmie didn't have a good view of the guy, so she lifted herself for the introduction.
 She looked this guys way and saw him. I mean really saw him. She saw the dark gleam of his brown eyes and he somehow in the mess of it all reminded her of a song. A beautiful song. You know? The ones that keep you singing? The ones that keep you crying, and laughing, and dancing. But you're never alone in them. Those kind of beautiful songs. That was this guy. And he wasn't him either. Because he was in the ground...still. And the life would never shine in his eyes again. And despite the utter stillness and faded glimmer in this guys eyes they were full of life. Bright, unfading, days in the sun kind of life. A life that she missed. A life she may be able to know again. And for the first time since she saw him put into the ground, she didn't want to go back to her bed and curl up in the February cold. She wanted to stay where it was warm.
 The stars were bright that night. And the cold mist settled over a sleeping town. And she missed him. And her mind never really lost the one track it was on, but now it didn't necessarily feel like it was derailing. And as the smell of leather comforted her this guy made her laugh. And she felt alive.