Not Good Enough For Truth In Cliche [open I guess]

Dear Lain,

How are things? I've been g


Hi loser,

What's up? Anything n


Hey,

I miss you

Kayla crumpled the paper into a ball and held it out in her palm. One blue spark, and it flared up, twisted, and blackened in her hand, and the girl watched it until it was nothing but ash and embers. She scattered the remnants of her letter in the shallows and gazed out across the lake, her mind hundreds and hundreds of miles away.

Summer seemed oblivious to the new season looming on the horizon. Sunlight reflected and shifted off the water's surface, and the air was fresh and cool and tinged with the smells of pine and earth and flowers. Dapples of light danced in the shadows of swaying trees and whispering leaves as birds sang from hidden nests, filling the forest with music, while  dragonflies zipped and raced through the air.

This part of the forest seemed half-drowned. Soil gave way to water, and trees grew in the shallows here with roots thicker than her legs. Clumps of tall grass peeked out from under the water, and she thought she could see flashes of silver from tiny fish swimming through the webs of roots and reeds.

She would have given anything to be able to dip her feet in the water, but gifts had funny ways of holding you back. Electric currents ran down her arm and to her finger tips while crackling sparks scurried through her hair, growing smaller and smaller until they fizzled into nothing, but every time one went out, it seemed another one was born out of thin air.

Kayla picked out a rock from the dirt and turned it over in her hand. It was skinny, round, and flat, like most of the rocks around here seemed to be. And most of the students as well. She frowned. Skipping stones. What a stupid cliche.