Hey everybody! I am pretty sure this will lose its formatting, oh well. This is the second chapter of the 'Rags' series. It is emotional, but not dark like the last chapter was. The next two chapters are about learning to deal with tragedy, and how you can find the beauty within a person even if their story was an ugly one. I hope it is enjoyable despite the fact there is no sexual activity in this chapter. Please leave comments if you can, it really helps my writing. Plot, characters, development, anything. I thrive on your feedback and always try to use it to improve. Thanks for reading!
P.S., I really want to take the time to thank fellow Literotica author foxyfiona. She has been a great help, letting me bounce some ideas off of her, and giving input that has really helped out. You have been amazing, girlie. I hope you don't mind if I let this one story be a surprise for you?
On one last side note. If anybody else wants to offer help with editing or advice, please do. I will gladly take all of the help I can get, lol.
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"Mommy!" Layla screamed as she shot upright.
In the grim darkness, she could hear the others rousing as she sat waiting for the tremors to go away. Her entire body was affected by them as though her body was attempting to accomplish what her nightmares could not- shake her loose from her precarious perch on the edge of sanity. She tried to breathe deeply in and out, something she was taught years ago to try to reassert control after several of these episodes during her youth which ended in violent tantrums. It was helping a little with these incidents when the nightmares returned. It always happened in times when she was stressed, and she had yet to come to grips with them.
It was not long before she heard footsteps crashing through the leaves, some ambling and some coming as quickly as possible. She knew before she saw her face appear through the doorway of her ragged tent who was there.
"I'm sorry, Ash." Layla managed to croak out through the emotion in her voice.
Ashley had not even managed to peek through the door flap yet. Ashley was 20 years old, and an absolute bombshell of a woman. She stood at 5 feet 6 inches, absolutely towering over Layla's 4 feet 11 inches whenever they stood next to each other. She had stunning gray eyes, black hair and an angel's face. Her cheeks were only slightly rounded next to a button nose giving her a look that was much younger than her age. Her full, pouty lips often screamed to be kissed, and she always sported a smile despite the way she lived. Her shoulders were average leading to a curvaceous body, though with a few extra pounds here and there it did nothing to distract from the woman's stunning beauty. She was one of those personalities that were entirely unpredictable. She could be the sweetest and most affectionate person in the world one minute, and the next she could turn into the bitch from hell. Thankfully it was the affectionate side that appeared through the tent flap.
Ashley looked down at Layla from outside the tent, if it could be called that. It was a piece of canvas that had been stretched out and patched probably a thousand times, but it was the best available and everybody had silently agreed Layla needed it more than they did. Some did it out of self-preservation. When Layla first arrived to their little tent city in the woods, she was a lost and scared twelve-year-old girl prone to nightmares and unprovoked fits of violence whenever anyone drew near. They had decided to keep her at the edge of the camp until she could fix her own issues.
Over the years, Layla had lost all traces of the violence that drove people away, but the nightmares continued, so at the edge of camp she remained. Nobody had cared to find out what Layla had been doing with her spare time, some assumed she was selling herself for money because she would occasionally wonder in with some new clothes. Ashley was one of those who lived under that assumption when she arrived at the tent city a year ago until little by little she got to know the troubled young woman.
Ashley had been astonished to learn all of her assumptions about Layla had been terribly wrong, and she had felt bad about giving into them as well as the talk from the camp gossips (yes, even among the homeless, gossips do exist). When she finally gotten around to talking to Layla, a frustrating experience at best, the girl was 17, completely insecure and did not trust her at all. She always shied away from men she had not been used to and talked very little. When she did talk, it was in a low voice, almost inaudible. Now, Layla was 18 and finally beginning to come out of her shell. Though they had gotten to know quite a bit about each other, there was so much that was still a mystery.
Layla was sitting upright, her entire body trembling and soaked with sweat despite the cool nighttime air. She had brought her legs up against her chest with her arms wrapped around them, and she was rocking back and forth slightly. This was a girl who should have been in a nice apartment somewhere trying to recover from a horror movie scene, not living in the woods among the homeless. Ashley couldn't help but think of a small child whenever she saw Layla. In many ways, she was one. She was unsophisticated, went along quietly with everything she was told, and more than a little naive. She was too trusting and not socially adept whatsoever, Ashley honestly worried about Layla sometimes.
"Lay-Lay, bad dreams again?" Ashley asked.
Layla buried her face against her legs as a small child would and nodded her head. She could hear Layla's soft sobs, almost inaudible.
"Let me guess," came a man's voice behind her causing Ashley to turn her head," bad dreams, yet again?"
"You really live up to your name, you know that?" Ashley quipped.
The man looked at her with a quizzical expression.
"Having the meaning of, you really are a Dick."
"My name is Richard, bitch! Not Dick." The man moved up aggressively but was held back by two other guys.
