Several hours later, Rose awoke to silence rather than the sound of her alarm, which she initially interpreted as a positive sign.
"Yes!" She pumped her fist. I woke up earlier than my alarm for once! She thought to herself. She got out of bed to turn off her alarm for the day, and her stomach dropped; not only had she not woken up early, but half the school day had already passed, and she wasn't even out of the house. Her mind scrambled for an explanation. How did this happen? Why didn't her alarm go off? Panic flooded her chest as she stared at the numbers flashing on the clock, her thoughts racing from one disaster to the next. I'm late. I'm so late. What will my teachers think? How am I supposed to explain this? The dread weighed heavily and urgently in her body as she dashed to throw on clothes, her hands fumbling and her pulse thudding behind her ears.
As she rushed to get ready for school, she noticed her computer had somehow turned on, and as she went to turn it off, she noticed the username of the author of the novel: Christmas_Eve. She waved the name off; it wasn't important to her.
Rose began to walk to school; with her dad working a night shift-based job, she had no other way to get to school. As she walked, she began to think of all the problems she would face today. As an honors student, she would get asked a million questions just as she arrived! Not to mention every teacher using her to do their dirty work rather than do it themselves. It's not fair, but what else can I do? She pondered.
She had to be a great student for her father, so he could retire early, and she could help him out. Since Rose's birth, her father had been hard at work every day to provide for her, even though he didn't set high expectations for her as others did. Rose remembered the countless times she saw her father sleeping after a long shift from 11 pm to 11 am. Though she didn't know who her mother was, her father always described her as fine, but Rose knew better, not that she would want to worry her father by telling him, but she knew that her mother had just been feeding off of her father by abusing the child support she claimed for Rose's two brothers. The only way that Rose knew this was the sheer amount of nosiness she had possessed for her whole life. She was good at snooping around, sure, but it had caused her some problems in life.
Rose finally arrived at her school and signed in at the front office with a late pass. With the spring semester just beginning, she got an excuse and had her late attendance removed. I got lucky today, hm? She admitted. As Rose made her way to her class, she saw someone she hadn't seen before. Being the student council president, she had seen almost every student in the school and conversed with them, so the fact that she hadn't recognized someone must have meant they were new, but again, she waved it off as she needed to get to class quickly.
When she reached her class, she heard her classmates talking inside. The class was well into session, but she hadn't wanted to open the door abruptly, so as not to attract attention, but what had to be done must be done.
When she opened the door class fell silent, as usually nobody intrudes into class. Her classmates greeted her, too many to distinguish who said what. She did not like the attention she was getting as soon as she walked in, but as the perfect president, they knew her as it was the least she could do to at least act happy.
"Hi guys! Sorry, I'm late; I ran into a stray mother cat on the way to school, and I just had to help the poor thing…" she had always been good at lying, having to for most scenarios. Her string of misinformation continued as she elucidated what had happened to her classmates and teachers. People would always listen to what she had to say, expectant of more every time, which wasn't so bad until they followed up and turned it into a semi-monologue.
Rose sat down in her seat, only to be asked to come to the teacher's desk for a moment. Her teacher leaned in close, using a folder as protection for other people to hear their conversation.
"Rose, I know you just got to class, but could you please talk to a frequently absent student? They weren't really doing well in their studies before, so if you could just give them a push towards the right direction that'd help, you know what I mean?"
Rose nodded.
"Thank you so much. They were told to wait in classroom 53, on the second floor, so if you could just give them a quick pep talk and that little push that'd be more than I could ask for."
Rose nodded again and began to walk out the door. More than you could ask for, sureeee, you just asked for it yourself, and you probably don't even care what I think… Rose walked up the steps mumbling to herself, looking at her feet.
"Honestly, why should I even care about some flunk who can't even bother to show up?" Rose continued to grumble to herself. As she reached the top of the stairs, she saw a pair of loafers, part of the student uniform. This was when Rose started worrying that she was heard mumbling. She looked up to meet the eyes of the student, who was the same person she had seen earlier.
"Hi, I was told to come talk to you! I'm Rose." She reached her hand out to shake the girl's hand, putting on a happy facade and just hoping she hadn't been heard complaining.
"Trust me, I know who you are. I'm Eve." Eve turned to go back to the classroom she was meant to meet with Rose in.
So disrespectful, can't even shake my hand? Rose was beside herself, but she decided to get this over with more quickly rather than get worked up about some random student.
Rose followed Eve into the classroom to find her sitting in a chair, writing on some papers. Though Rose was compelled to see what was being written, she didn't want to spend more time with this student than she had to.
"So what did you want?" Eve asked, not looking up.
"I just wanted to talk to you about your attendance and that you can still make-" Rose was cut off.
"So, something pointless. I don't care about school; these people keep trying to get me to come for no reason. And for starters, if you have a job, maybe you shouldn't go grumpy up the stairs so loud, you'll get heard…" Eve looked Rose directly in the eye, side-eyeing her at the same time. Eve had a demeanor about her that told Rose she was ready to brawl at any moment.
Rose felt uncomfortable; she wondered why it had to be her always doing the teachers' work for them.
"U-uhm…" Rose struggled to get her words out.
"It's fine… I won't tell… if you meet me here after school, that is," said Eve, still not looking up. Rose was bewildered, conflicting emotions duking it out inside her. Rose nodded and left without another word, not wanting to stay in Eve's chokingly cold presence for much longer.
Rose's palms were sweating, her eyes ever so slightly hazy as she walked back to class. Before she opened the door, she decided to go wash off in the bathroom. When she reached the bathroom, she entered the stall, not even locking it, and immediately leaned over the toilet, hurling again and again.
Rose heard someone enter the bathroom while she was still on the floor, a mess of herself. She closed the door and locked it so as to avoid a potential conversation. Rose stayed quiet, her shoulders shuddering, her mouth tasting like dinner. The person who entered the bathroom leaned in front of the sinks. Rose could see their feet, but nothing else. As Rose continued to stay quiet, she heard quiet, shallow exhales at first, gradually forming into a sob.
The person was crying. Rose didn't want to interrupt them, but she felt another hurl coming on and therefore tried her best to push it down, even biting her own hand so as not to break into this person's private moment. The faucet turned on, and after a few moments, the person walked away from the bathroom, leaving Rose alone once again. After the experience she just witnessed, Rose no longer needed to hurl, for she had been distracted by her experience with Eve for a bit. Rose exited the stall, washed herself off, and went back to class.
The day passed quickly, and as Eve and the person in the bathroom on Rose's mind occupied her thoughts all day, she was often told she was zoning out. At one point, Rose was walking in the hall and bumped into someone, dropping her storage clipboard and causing a small scene in the hallway filled with many apologies.
Though she tried to get it out of her mind, it was just too much not to think about it. Once the day was finally over, though, Rose went back to classroom 53, making sure nobody was around before she reached toward the door handle, ever so slightly trembling. She turned the cold handle and opened the door. Rose's eyes met Eve, sitting in a chair, writing on those papers again. Her curiosity about what was on the papers grew, but, knowing Eve for how she was, it was probably horrid. Rose quietly approached Eve, and a few steps later, Eve turned over her papers and stood up.
"What did you call me here for?" Rose interrogated.
"I want you to do a favor for me, of course, you will, won't you? Wouldn't want people knowing what pretty little Rosy said, now wouldn't we?" Eve was truly a monster, attempting to extort Rose, at least in Rose's eyes.
"N-nobody heard me, you have no proof and no witnesses…" Rose fiddled with the seam of her skirt.
"Are you sure I don't?" Eve pulled out a cellphone and played back Rose's voice, 'N-nobody heard me, you have no proof and no witnesses…'
"Maybe again?" Eve played it again, about two or three times over, before Rose cracked.
"OK, OK! What do you need..?" Rose wiped her glistening eye with the pale linen collar of her shirt.
Eve picked up her papers and homogenized them before speaking.
"Could you get me a snack from Miss Anderson's lunch? And maybe a drink from the teacher's lounge while you're at it." Demanded Eve. Rose knew fully that this would not only be a hard feat, but if she got in trouble, it would be pretty bad for her. Miss Anderson was widely known as the strictest teacher for their year and would, in most cases, suspend people for doing things like cheating on a quiz, and more! Rose would surely get a brutal punishment for even a smaller act of thievery.
"A-a-are you sure I can't do something else? Anything, please?" Rose's knee was twitching, the fiddling with her skirt becoming rougher and her fingertips becoming moist.
"Would you rather go and get me a hundred dollars out of the principal's wallet?" Eve gave Rose little time to think before continuing, "I don't think you would, so how about you go and get me that snack before I get hungrier." Eve placed an asserting, rather threatening hand on Rose's shoulder as she spoke, before pushing her away in dismissal.
Rose shuffled out of the room, not daring to look back at Eve, who continued to put that pressuring atmosphere upon her. Once Rose got out of the school, she began to run home, and she didn't stop. She passed by people, of course, classmates of hers who greeted her as she ran by, locals whom Rose knew, and strangers alike, but Rose did not stop for any of them. Rose's legs began to give out. She didn't run very often, but she kept pushing for home. Once she got home, she quietly entered so as not to wake her sleeping father and went to the bathroom. Rose would turn on the faucet and sink into the floor, melting away as she sobbed quietly. She wondered why it had to be her who was being abused, why it was her who had to walk to room 53, into that cursed door, and not someone else. After about 10 minutes, she heard a soft knock on the bathroom door, bringing her back to reality on that numbing floor.
"Sweetheart, are you ok? The sink's been on for a while now." Said Rose's father
"Yeah, I'm fine, I just-" Rose hiccupped from her previous crying, though she disguised it with a few realistic coughs.
"I was just washing my hands, and I zoned out, my bad!" Fibbed Rose.
"Alright, just making sure… don't leave it on for too long, we can't spend too much this month, work's been short." Her dad walked away, leaving Rose alone again in her own aching wake. Rose cleaned up and decided to take a shower to forget her worries, even for a little bit.
As Rose entered the shower, what she hoped to gain from it was lost instantly as Eve flooded her mind. Rose clawed at herself inside. It was all she could do as thoughts of Eve, and what Rose would have to do, launched a full, demolishing attack on her brain. She leaned against the wall, her brain growing foggy from the thoughts mixed with the shower head's steam, and tried her best to calm herself down. After a while of reassurance that it would be okay and her usual methods of self-settling, she was able to shower in pseudo-peace…
Once Rose got out, she got dressed and made some food for her and her dad. Without a mother in her house and her father usually being exhausted, Rose was eager to learn how to cook from a young age, to help her dad even more.
"What's for dinner tonight?" Her dad walked into the kitchen holding a glass of water.
"Eggs over rice." Rose bustled around the kitchen, and her dad went back to his room. She opened the tray of assorted eggs, brown, white, some with a hint of blue, and put 3 into her large copper pan, painted white. Once the eggs began to sear, she worked on the rice in a separate pan, her motions delicate as she cooked. Once the food was ready, she called her father to eat while she served the food. An egg for her and two for him, he usually ate about double, or (sometimes) triple, what Rose would eat. Rose set his and her plates on the table and sat down, waiting patiently for her groggy father to get up.
"Your food will get cold, hurry up!" Rose shouted
After a few minutes, her dad came out, fully dressed in the clothing he went to work in still.
"You must be exhausted, huh?" asked Rose
"Longer shift last night, plus Rob was being an idiot again." Her dad replied whilst wolfing down his food. Rose's dad would always eat quickly, similar to Rose.
"I'm sure things'll lighten up soon." At that point, they had stopped speaking as they were both continuously munching on their dish.
"Pass me the salt, will you?" Her dad asked, and Rose passed it over.
Once finished, Rose's dad retreated back to his room, but not before kissing Rose on the forehead.
"Goodnight, sweetie, I'll see you tomorrow, and then I can teach you that knuckleball." Her father stopped for a moment, looking at Rose, his eyes tired but kind, before he went to sleep.
Rose scraped her and her father's plates off over the trash can and put them in the dishwasher to be washed before Rose went to school. Rose then turned off the lights in the kitchen and headed off to her room to read the new web novel she started.
Rose turned on the light in her room, which she had seldom been in today, to find a gift on her desk with a sizable slice of upside-down pineapple cake, Rose and her dad's favorite cake; though it was too expensive to buy often. The gift had a note on it: 'Happy 16th, sweetheart.' in his messy, ogre handwriting. Rose opened up the box and inside lay an assortment of things, including a hand woven hairband of rose and mint silks to clash with her pink dyed hair, with a note implying her dad made it; a necklace of 12 karat rose gold with small rubies in each link (Rose's birth stone), and a perfectly clean, well kept baseball signed by Rose's favorite Major League star, Grace Rodgers.
At the sight of these gifts, Rose's eyes welled up; she would have to thank her dad a million times over before she could even show half of her gratitude. Rose opened up the plastic case of the baseball and picked it up with the white cotton handling glove next to the case. It was immaculately tidy, none of the seams ripped, the leather as white as Rose's teeth, with a near-perfect sheen. She turned the ball over to examine Grace's signature. It was pretty, almost as pretty as Grace herself, the ink fully absorbed into the ball, never to be smudged or removed ever.
Rose left the other gifts for tomorrow, to wear to school. Whether it was a special day or not did not matter, she needed to wear the necklace and hairband immediately. Rose put the box of gifts on her shelf and sat down in her chair to read the web novel she had begun last night. She turned her computer on and opened up the first chapter…
A few hours had passed before Rose realized she was on Earth; the story was truly immaculate; a ten out of ten in the first few chapters. The story was centered around a girl who fell in love with a guy while walking at night, and she tried her best to find out who she was - but he was on a plane to go back to his country - so she needed to book a flight to Germany to find the one she loved, but she faces many troubles and setbacks along the way. Rose had read almost 200 pages of the book by the time she woke up, but the only reason she had snapped out of it in the first place was that she had finished what was currently written; the novel was not completed yet. Rose looked at the time, and she had sadly missed her dad going to work, but she would thank him once for every one of the 8 billion existing people on earth the next time they met.
Rose would have been down since she finished the whole book in one night, but with how the night's events had been, nothing could bring her down… with the exception of what Eve would have Rose do the next day, but those were bad vibes for another time. Rose turned off her whirring computer, got settled into her welcoming, gentle bed, and curled up her chilly knees to her chest, wondering how she would manage the next day…