When Lincoln returned home, he knew it was a school night, and so he had to prepare for tomorrow. Before he went to sleep, he put Ashley and Penny's phone numbers in his contacts, as he was told their numbers during his time with the two.
When he did return to school the following day, it was more or less the same thing as previous days: dealing with the Hoff, disgusting lunches, tons of homework, and bullies messing with him.
Today in particular wasn't exacly a good one for the white-haired boy. During today's gym class, he sustained aching in his arms after being exensively battered with balls during a dodgeball match, and one of those balls hit his arm rather hardly. Because of this, he had a minor bruise on it, and was relatively unable to hold a pencil without pain in his arms, thus he couldn't do most of his schoolwork.
When the dismissal bell rang, he stopped at the bathroom to grab a damp paper towel, and then left the school.
"Ohhhh, my hand is killing me!" moaned Lincoln. "Why can't dodgeball get prohibited or something?"
His backpack also added more pain to his arm.
"Aaugh, where can I rest my sore arm?" Lincoln wondered.
While searching for some place to sit, Lincoln noticed a bench next to a tree, not unlike the one where he and Zoey met. Not being able to take the pain while walking for much longer, he took off his backpack and put it on said bench and sat there, still clenching the ice pack to his arm.
"Note to self, make an excuse next gym class to not risk your well-being." Lincoln remarked to himself.
He soon got himself comfortable and after a while was on the verge of dozing off, mainly since what he's been through during today tired him out a lot. He laid down preparing to nap, little did he realize he was laying his head on his bad arm.
However, before he could fall asleep, he noticed what appeared to a girl skipping down the sidewalk with a jump rope while singing a rhyme to herself.
"Cinderella, dressed in yellow, went upstairs to kiss her fellow. Made a mistake and kissed a snake, how many doctors did it take?" she merrily sang as she made her way down the street, jumping over the rope in sync with the ditty.
"Oh no, what do I do now?"Lincoln thought to himself.
Not wanting to look sleep-deprived or homeless when she passed by, Lincoln got up and tried to look cool or at least socialable, but his arm was still aching and making it hard to act normally.
"Oww! Dang it, forgot about my arm!" Lincoln yelped.
"1, 2, 3, 4, 5..." the girl counted as she skipped along closer and closer to Lincoln.
At this point, Lincoln felt it was no use running since it would make the pain worse. He just sat there waiting for it to all be over.
"12, 13, 14, 15, 16..." she continued on. When she got close enough to see Lincoln, she stopped in place, noticing how much pain he was in alongside his bruised arm.
"Hey, what in the world happened to you?" the girl questioned while pointing to his arm.
"Long story." Lincoln said, accidentally raising his bad arm. "Ouch!"
The girl flinched at his pain.
"Seems like you need some assistance." she suggested. "Mind if I have a seat?"
"If you want, I guess." replied Lincoln, once again clenching his arm.
She took a seat next to Lincoln, so he got a better view of her. The girl was a few inches taller than him, had fair skin, and freckles on her cheeks. Her blonde hair was tied in two bushy pigtails with turquoise hair ties. Her normal attire consisted of a turquoise dress with a white collar, in addition to a white strap tied around her waist. She also wore long white kneesocks and turquoise mary janes. Her voice was rather youthful and bubbly.
"So, lemme get this straight. Is your arm the thing that's hurting?" asked the girl.
It took a few moments for Lincoln to answer since his arm was still hurting.
"Yeah." Lincoln answered weakly.
"How did this happen?" the girl continued.
"It got hit super hard with a dodgeball in gym class." responded Lincoln.
"Man, that's a bummer." the girl said in a sad tone, while patting Lincoln's shoulder.
"Yeah, don't you hate gym?" asked Lincoln.
"I sure do. Nobody there has even the slightest bit of remorse when it comes to the games we play there." the girl replied.
"One time, my face was left caved in for three days because a dogeball hit me right in the face." she continued on.
"That probably gave you alot of weird looks." Lincoln remarked.
"It healed after a few days, it wasn't as severe as most people assumed." the girl added on.
"By the way, what's your name?" wondered Lincoln.
"Mine's Taila!" the girl replied.
Taila then scanned Lincoln's appearance and remembered something about him.
"Hold on, I think I know you!" Taila exclaimed.
"Wait, what?" said Lincoln.
"Your name's Lincoln Loud, isn't it?" comfirmed Taila.
"That's correct, how did you know?" Lincoln questioned, still amazed at how Taila knew him.
"I saw you a few times in the hallway this year, and I think I spotted you last year as well." Taila replied.
"Oh, wow!" Lincoln exclaimed.
"Getting back to your arm, is it okay if I try to help you?" Taila offered. "My mother taught me a little something regarding stuff like this."
"You can give it a try, but I'm not keeping my hopes high it'll recover." Lincoln told her.
"Don't worry, I know exactly what I'm doing!" Taila reassured him.
Taila then scooted closer to see what she could do. She moved Lincoln's arm to her, which made the white-haired boy wince in agony. Taila started massaging Lincoln's arm with her hands. While this caused pain to him at first, it soon got more and more pleasant the more she did it. After about 10 minutes of massaging, Taila let go of Lincoln's arm and set it down.
"How does your arm feel now, Lincoln?" Taila asked him.
Lincoln was unsure if he wanted to move his arm at first. He then began to raise his arm, and felt almost no soreness in it.
"It actually feels much better!" Lincoln told her.
"I knew that'd work out!" restated Taila.
"Thank you so much, Taila!" Lincoln exclaimed to her.
"No problem!" Taila replied.
The two shared a warm embrace after this. After hugging for a while, the two let go of each other.