Bloody Roses

1

I hate this place.
That was my first thought as I slammed the door to my rusted ass locker. The hallway ceiling had a busted pipe somewhere and unfortunately my locker seemed to be the only one affected by it. But that was just how lady luck treated almost everything in my life. I just had to learn how to roll with the many, many punches. It was the last day of high school and nothing brought me greater joy than knowing how close i was to leaving behind these high class walls of false self importance forever. I had gotten down on my hand and knees, something i was definitely accustomed to (wink, wink) and begged my mother to let me skip today all together. But like a true dominatrix of all things pain and torture, she turned me down stating that she thought it would be a great opportunity to say goodbye to my "friends". Friends... Yeah right.. The singular problem with that thought was that I didn't have any friends.

Mostly just a few jocks and cheerleaders were here because this was their last chance to project their fragile emotions to everyone. Mostly to hide the fact that they were broken, damaged goods who craved the attention from parents that simply couldn't give two fucks about them.

The school was eerily empty though. Most of the rich kids were already planning parties or heading to their vacation homes in different continents. Even the people who weren't wealthy and got in here through scholarships or the gift program had decided showing up on the last day was nerdy and unnecessary.

The nerds were attending too of course because god forbid they miss a day of school. The whole world would probably implode. And then there was me. Where do i fit in? That's a good question that requires an equally good answer, which unfortunately... i do not possess.

I was rich with Harvard standard grades but I never truly fit in because i was a single child in a household with almost no authority figures resulting in my social skills taking a massive plummet. I was practically raised by my nanny since the age of five, after my fathers car accident left him in a coma that he shortly died from a year later. It left us pretty emotionally damaged and it took me a couple of years and some intense therapy to finally work up enough happiness to even be able to laugh again. Mother had done pretty well for us though, all things considered. Her official title was Senator Shiela Dean and she was highly favored among her peers as she took her job more seriously then she took being a mom. I had everything I could need or ask for but all that meant was that we barely knew each other and it's a wonder i could even recognize her in a crowd. We were practically strangers and that pissed me off far more than words could ever express.
My nanny eased a bit of that heartache though. Elizabeth Mahoning is amazing and bad ass in every sense of the word from her speech to her actions. I didn't like her at first and the goddess knows i had tried to get rid of her on more than a few occasions. I'd even went as far as replacing her shampoo with blue hair dye. But no matter what pranks i pulled or what tantrums i threw, she always kept her cool and never gave up on me. She took my last prank in stride, rocked that blue hair proudly and finally gained my respect that day. She taught me how to dress myself and how to do math. She sat patiently with me while I butchered my alphabets for weeks until I got it right. She taught me how to read, how to cook, and she took me to and from school everyday without fail. She was the reason why all of my classes were AP. She taught me all the things that turned a girl into a woman and she was the one who comforted me after my first teenage heart break. Of course at that time, it had seemed like my whole world was ending and i would never survive it but Eliza made me realize that i would find love again. She made me promise not to give up and not to let anyone break me. She was the calm to my storm in the simplest of terms. Shiela made sure I could afford to buy the country if i wanted to but Eliza made sure I knew what love was.

I walked into the last class of the day and looked around. AP World History had always been my least favorite class. The room always smelled of dying hyacinths and the teacher was over the top erratic. Mrs. Julia was always introducing new things to the class that she'd found in her studies or on her travels and they weren't always the coolest findings. Two months ago she had come back from a trip to Asia and replaced every single desk with bright orange bean bag chairs the size of a small vehicle. It made it hard to walk around and if you weren't careful how you positioned your body, you could sink to the bottom and be lost forever. Not to mention taking any kind of notes while sitting in them was impossible. There were only two seats left and i sighed deeply when i realized who they were next to. Arianna Danvil and Brittany Joseph lounged in the back of the room. They were seated on the plush black love seat that the teacher had been forced to buy because like two spoiled brats, they refused to sit in anything else. It didn't help that their families were "friends" and together were the biggest donors the school had. So, you know... they were practically law around here. One bean bag was placed in front of them a little ways away and the other was right beside the arm of their couch. I chose the less offensive and lowered my head into my lap as i sank down but of course that only made me more of a mean-girl target.