Lyric and Lanie's Biography

Lyric was born in a very affluent suburb of Atlanta, Georgia.  Her parents sent her to the best schools that their money could buy and she grew up having everything she could possibly want.  It was a boring enough childhood, full of princess birthday parties, a walk-in closet fit for a queen full of all the frilly pink outfits a girl could want, and a credit card that she could use to buy anything her parent's had not thought of.  

But something happened on Lyric's 14th birthday when she was out shopping for a dress with her mom at the mall, that changed her life forever.  She met Lanie.  The girl was standing outside one of the shops wearing a torn t-shirt, a black hoodie, and jeans with more holes than Lyric had ever seen before.  And even though she might have passed someone like her by a million times, for some reason she liked her instantly.  So much that she snuck away from her mom to speak to her and by the time Lyric's mother had gotten around to finding her daughter, she found her with Lanie sitting at the food court devouring big mac's and laughing as if they had known each other for years.

The two should never have become friends, no one really understood what a tomboy who lived in public housing with her alcoholic father would have in common with a girl who looked like she came right out of the movie "Clueless", but regardless of what anyone had to say about it, they bonded and were inseparable ever after.  

Lyric's family was not accepting of her befriending Lanie, they claimed she was a bad influence and that Lyric would end up ruining her future by hanging around her all the time.  All of this came to a head one day when they found out that Lyric had been using her credit card to buy Lanie things such as an iPhone, a laptop and even buying her new clothes and groceries so that there was more in her fridge than her dad's beer.

Her parents told her that she would find that someone like Lanie would only use her if she got her used to living like this all the time.  But Lyric persisted in her efforts, the girls had become close friends not because of the things they had in common, but because their differences seemed to attract in ways even they could not explain.  Maybe it was because Lanie never asked Lyric for money or gifts and showed her gratitude in ways that were honest and genuine.  Perhaps it was that Lanie found she could vent about her life to Lyric and that even if she had no sound advice in her ditzy little head, that she knew she had really heard her.

When the girl's turned 18, Lyric had asked Lanie if she wanted to move into the apartment her parent's were getting her.  Of course, she never told her parents and so they had gotten the apartment in Tori's name and Lyric was meant to bring her the money for the first month's rent and the deposit on the day that Lyric disappears.  So Lanie is left wondering if her best friend has abandoned her just as everyone else in her life had.

Lanie hated her name, always thinking it was a bit too girly for someone who was busy trying to act tough.
Named for a mother who had not stuck around more than 6 months after her birth, Lanie was a bit jaded about everything in her life.  Lanie never understood why she was left with her dad instead of her mom taking her with, but she learned that she was killed in a drunk driving accident a year after she abandoned Lanie and her father, and on his good days, Lanie's dad would remind her that is was fate that she was left behind so he'd still have his little sunshine around.  But on his bad days.  .  .  well Lanie didn't like to go there, so it remained a dirty locked book of secrets what happened in that shit hole apartment in the projects in an area known affectionately as Cabbagetown.

People probably suspected the truth, but Lanie was a loyal sort, her dad was all she had left in this world and even if he deserved some ugly fate in prison, Lanie wasn't going to be the snitch that landed him there, at least that was how she saw it.  One way she used to cope with how her life at home was, was going to the big mall on the other side of town, where life looked quite different.  She would sneak through the turnstiles at the subway and ride until the people that got on and off looked more like tourists than the grungy riff-raff that she was used to.  Then she'd walk into the mall and stare into the shop windows and people watch.  That's what she was doing the day Lyric met her, she was watching the way Lyric would point at something she liked, and her mom would add it to the pile like it was nothing!  This always made Lanie stare in wonder and confusion.  

But at some point in her watching of other customers, Lanie missed Lyric sneaking up to say hello to her.  Normally she would have made some sarcastic jab at a girl like Lyric, just so that she didn't go getting any ideas that Lanie wanted to be their friend, but Lyric was different, something about her made Lanie want to laugh at her and hug her at the same time.  And so Lyric somehow charmed her way through Lanie's tough exterior and the two became friends.

Lanie never once told Lyric all of how it was at home, she had Lyric over a few times until she realized how uncomfortable it made her, but then Lyric would surprise her by buying her little things that Lanie knew had good intentions behind them.  An iPhone seemed useless to her at first, but after a while, she realized how nice it was to connect to her one true friend in this crazy fucked up world.  

Lanie had thought many times about running away when she turned 18 and never looking back, but that changed after she met Lyric.  So when Lyric told Lanie she was getting an apartment and that she was going to pay for it, but put it in Lanie's name, well who wouldn't jump at that chance, Lanie knew she was going to.

So on the day that they go to sign the lease and pay the deposits and first month's rent, Lanie is anxiously awaiting Lyric's arrival with the money.  But Lyric never shows up.  Lanie has to walk back to her dad's apartment, and her dad laughs at her, telling her just how stupid she is for believing that she'd ever get out of this shit hole.

It's a few days before she finally tracks the location of Lyric's iphone with her own and realizes she is somehow on the other side of the country.  But Lyric still isn't answering any of her texts or calls.  Finally, with nothing left to lose, Lanie backs a backpack, she counts up the money she's hidden under her bed, every time that Lyric gave her a few dollars here or there, she'd save it.  And she realized she probably had enough to get a bus to where the gps was telling her Lyric was.  

Sneaking quietly she went into the kitchen drawer where her dad kept his beer money, she
d never once dared to do this before, but as she watched him snoring on the couch she grabbed the money from it and sauntered out of the house, closing the door behind her, for what would be the last time.