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[wide-eyed-and-curly-haired-blog]

Lost Until I Found You

Hi! This is my first ever attempt at fanfiction so please give me feedback! Would love to hear what you think :) 

Chapter One

The stark, neon lights spelling out ‘Welcome to Riverdale’ that loom ahead, jolt Lexie back to reality as she drives into the town that has haunted her dreams since she was 8 years old. Concentrating on the task at hand – finding the motel she had googled weeks ago when she began to take her little summer trip seriously – distracts her from panicking and turning her car back around. After a few wrong turns and misread signs, Lexie finally arrives at her destination. She reaches to the passenger seat and opens the dashboard, snatching the crisp, white envelope into her hands and opens it. She examines the contents. A small smile spreads onto her face as she reads the post-it note her foster parents had attached to the wad of cash inside:

           Lexie,

           Spend wisely honey!

           If you need more, you know who to ring!

           Angie + Mike

If she was honest with herself, she knows she couldn’t have asked for better foster parents for the last 5 years, but there will always be something about Angela and Mike that makes her feel like a charity-case. She often wonders whether they only fostered her so that they could feel like they were giving good back to the world, taking time out of their busy business lives in California, and forgot about the parenting part. Sure, they give her all the money she wants and let her go wherever with whoever at any time, but sometimes all she’s ever wanted is someone to actually care where she is going and why. Besides, Lexie has learnt the hard way that money can’t buy you happiness. Still, they were an obvious improvement to the 6 families she’d lived with before that…or was it 7? She thinks back to a few days before, when she had said goodbye to Angela and Mike, smiling widely at the memory.

***

“OK, so, you’ve got all your clothes honey? And enough gas to get you to Riverdale? Are you sure you don’t want us to get you a lawyer to come with you for all the estate stuff? No, you’re right you can do it! Hell, you’re more independent than me and I’m 45!...” Angela rambles, her eyes glazed over as she reels off another speech about how proud she is of Lexie being a ‘strong independent woman’ who is grabbing life with both hands.

“Angie, you know I’ll be fine! Besides, I have your cellphone number if I need help with anything.” Lexie retorts, waving her hands at Angela indicating for her to back off. Her foster mom is right – Lexie is a strong independent woman – so independent that sometimes she feels like the parent in this household, she muses to herself.

Mike steps forward, not a man of many words; “You better set off now Lexie, you don’t wanna be driving right through the night.”

Lexie paints on a smile, glad for Mike’s calming influence on Angie, hugging them both into her arms. “I love you loads guys, I’ll keep checking in every few days. See you soon.”

She revs the engine and checks her rear-view mirror, grateful to see that her parents had already gone back inside. Lexie hated goodbyes. Even though she was excited to finally be leaving their sleepy little Californian suburb, she hated the fact that she was stepping into the unknown, or rather driving head on into it. But, this was something she knew she had to do, so she put the car into gear and accelerated out onto the open road.

***

A door slams on the motel front as a man leaves his room, bringing Lexie back into the present. She watches as he climbs into a pick-up truck and leaves the parking lot. Lexie takes a few deep breaths and stuffs her keys into her pocket, taking the envelope and backpack with her as she opens the car door. Her right foot hits the gravel first, and she swings the left one down to meet it, shutting the door behind her. She takes another breath. She isn’t ready for the bubble of longing that rises in her stomach as she breathes in the earthy, damp, pine forest smell. It reminds her of a little girl playing tag with the wind tangling in her hair and the sweet sound of running water from the river nearby. She swears she can almost hear the little girl’s laugh as she gets caught by a boy with a beanie hat.

Lexie pulls her backpack into her chest and walks to the motel reception desk. The set-up is not quite the standard of hotel she is used to. The white walls have cracks running down from the roof, plaster is peeling off revealing a dirt coloured underneath, where mould spills over the edge. She manages to get a room for the week and takes a few trips back and forth to unload her car. The room is simple and basic, and the receptionist said she could enquire about extending her stay at the end of the week. Lexie lowers herself onto the bed, which makes a creaking whine in return. After taking a minute to survey her surroundings, satisfied, she starts to unpack.

***

This can’t be the right one, Lexie thinks to herself as she rereads the gravestone for the tenth time, but it is. Her eyebrows pull together on her sun-kissed forehead as she tries to make sense out of the two graves before her. These graves were her parent’s graves, and whilst Lexie had been led to believe that after their death when she was 8 years old, all her family had shunned her and them, the countless gifts, candles and flowers that lay on the floor next to her feet contradicted that. She was overwhelmed.

The pain of losing them was still so hard every day, but she didn’t ever realise that other people missed them too. Her heart clenched in her chest, her breathing becoming more rapid as tears formed in the corners of her wide, emerald green eyes. She added a bunch of white roses to the pile. She thinks she could remember them being her mom’s favourites. Lexie sat in front of the graves for what felt like hours, going through all her memories of her parents as tears fell in streams down her rosy cheeks. Sometimes she went through the memories like a list to help her sleep at night. It comforted her knowing that she hadn’t forgotten them all yet.

Being here in Riverdale made it all seem so much more real, and she found herself gripping the grass with both hands as if she were clinging onto the past. In a grief-stricken haze, she made a decision to confront her past with all she had got, and she would do it tonight.

***

She made a quick stop at the gas station, glancing around the aisles for something she could eat as her stomach complained at her for forgetting dinner. Ah, this was what she was looking for – chips. As she looked through the different brands on offer, she couldn’t help but listen in to a conversation going on further down the aisle.

“Jesus guys, how many times do I have to tell you, GIRLS ARE NOT A PIECE OF MEAT, now leave the poor girl alone”

Lexie swivelled her head to look at a leather-clad pink-haired girl standing next to two, also leather-clad guys who were ogling at her. The girl had a low-cut top with a black leather skirt, complimented by fishnet tights and some boots, not too dissimilar from her own Doc Martens. Lexie met her eyes and then shifted her gaze quickly to rest on the taller of the two boys with her. She looked down over his blue flannel shirt that was a little too tight, offering a glimpse at a tightly toned chest underneath. He wore a thick, leather jacket that was slightly aged, and fit him like a glove. Her eyes travelled upwards to a large S-shaped tattoo on his exposed neck, and widened as she realised which part of town they had come from. Interrupting her from her inner turmoil, a low, deep grunt of a voice seemed to silence the store.

“See something you like, Princess?”

Lexie snapped her eyes back up to meet his and frowned, licking her lips. She prayed her voice wouldn’t betray her fear as she took a step forward.

“Yes, actually. I wanted to grab a packet of those chips right behind you. Driving makes me hungry.”

The trio clearly didn’t expect that response, as the smaller boy and pink-haired girl chuckled and nudged each other, looking at the taller one with their eyebrows raised.

“Didn’t your parents ever teach you to charm a snake? Not step on its tail and make it bite?”

Lexie feigned confusion and sauntered forwards, making sure to swing her hips as she made her way across to where he stood, never taking her eyes away from his. When she reached where they stood, she pretended to reach around the tall boy, angling her body so that it was inches away from his and grabbed the chips from behind him. She looked up at him through her eyelashes and said “No, but I have learned that food beats sex any day, so I’ll just take the chips thanks.”

This resulted in a roar of laughter from small-boy and pink-girl, so Lexie winked and walked to the cashier. She bit her cheeks to stop her from laughing as she watched a clearly rattled tall-boy leave the store with his friends, trying not to feel a pull of adrenaline as they zoomed off on three motorbikes. Phew, Lexie thought to herself. That was too close. She wanted to throw the Serpents off her scent before she was ready to see them again, and what better way to do it than with a little flirting. Especially, because she knew that if the bottom of her crop top rose a tiny bit higher up her rib cage, her cover would have been blown by the familiar S that was engraved on her skin.

She got back into her car, took a few deep breaths and headed to confront her past. There was only one place they could be, she thought. The Whyte Wyrm.