Kaider Shots

Part 2

(Tuesday)

"Winter, I told you. I don't want to go on a date." Cinder loved her cousin to death. But she wished she's stop trying to set her up on dates.

"He's a great guy, Cinder. If you want, Jacin and I can go with you and have a double date."

"I just don't want to go on a date in general. You know why I don't like to go out."

"But that was eighteen years ago. Can't you just move on?"

"No. I can't." She didn't understand. Winter would never get why it was impossible for Cinder to forget the man she once loved more than life itself. The man she could picture herself with almost too easily. The one she prayed with all her heart would ask her to marry him.

Yes, it had been eighteen years ago. But that was when the two of them had been in an all too serious relationship. When he had to leave for a job his father wanted him to take. And just a few weeks after he left, she tested positive for being pregnant, with his child.

Even after he left her, she still loved him. She even named their daughter after the first gift he ever gave her. A little, red rose. He presented it to her on their first date. He said he was sorry for such a dumb, cliche gift. She smiled, and told him that she adored the gesture.

Every time she even brought him up, she could hardly keep herself from falling to pieces. When Winter asked her what happened between them an hour after he left, she spilled it all as gallons of water fled from her eyes. Cinder had already sold her house, and Winter let her come to live with her for a few years. It would have been hard enough to raise Rose on her own, so she was grateful for Winter's assistance.

Her old friends Scarlet, Cress, Wolf, Thorne, and Jacin helped too. Now, they were all married. Wolf married Scarlet and started a family of their own. Cress and Thorne tied to knot after he gave up his life of petty crimes. Finally, Jacin and Winter married when he worked up the nerve to tell her how he felt about her and proposed. Cinder was the only one in their group of friends that wasn't married yet.

She thought about giving Rose up during her pregnancy. About letting her go to an orphanage. But she never could. Rose was part of him, and Cinder couldn't let the last thing she had left of him go. Or live knowing she let a little girl grow up feeling she was unworthy of a mother's love. Cinder knew that, from personal experience, no one deserved to grow up without a mom to send them to sleep every night. To love and care for them everyday.

"Like I said," Cinder woke up from her day dream. "I just don't want to go out. And besides, I'm busy Friday."

"With what?" her cousin asked, unconvinced.

"Kids at Rose's school have been trying to get her in trouble. Her principal wants to have an after school meeting with me to talk about it."

"Well, that's stupid."

"I know. But if Rose is getting mistreated, I'm going to put an end to it."

"Fine. Just ... don't let it consume you, okay. She's almost an adult. She'll be going off to college in the summer."

"Don't remind me," Cinder sighed.

..............

Rose walked into class, early, as usual. She sat at her desk in the front row and pulled out her latest novel, "Percy Jackson: The Lightning Thief". She was just at the part when Grover put on Hermes's winged shoes and was being dragged down the side of Half-Blood Hill.

"Rose?" She nearly squeaked and dropped her book. She looked over to the door, and dreaded even coming back to school. Principal Huang stood in the doorway, probably to prevent her from leaving.