Rose

Chapter 10

School was – well, weird. As soon as I entered the gates into the expanse of the school hall, all eyes flew to me. It wasn’t the sort of gossipy, bitchy stare. It was more of a: ‘wow look at her’ stare. And surprisingly, I wasn’t sure I liked it.

Seriously though, everybody, even the girls and boys who couldn’t care less about me were huddled in small clusters, whispering and sneaking glances. In the furthest corner of the hall was a wooden stage, that was where I found another group of people, and instantly recognised Tiffany’s bleached head amongst them. I paced quickly, praying to the heavens that I wouldn’t trip over. With the litter of hawk eyes calculating my every move, I couldn’t make a single falter in my step.

“Tiff, what the hell is going on?” I questioned her, my eyes like saucers. I couldn’t help but notice how much of a big deal she made in ushering me along to a secluded corner.

“Omigod Tali babes; you never told me that AVA ROSE, THE ACTUAL AVA ROSE knows who you are!” I shrugged, embarrassed. Wait. What if everybody knows that she’s my mum and that I’ve gone to all this trouble just to find out who she is and that I actually went to go and visit her ALONE and then my parents will be so mad at me for not telling them anything. Oh my gosh, and then Charlie will get in trouble too for partially having something to do with it I suppose and –

“I swear, your family knows everyone, I’m like, seriously not even joking,” she coughed out an irritating little giggle and looked at me.

“Wait, my family?” I couldn’t help feeling a little confused.

“Yeah, stupid, your family; Ava said she’s here to talk to you and that she’s a ‘family friend’” I breathed a discrete sigh of relief.

“Oh, right, yeah we’ve known her for ages,” I managed to drag out my sentence, “Lemme go see what she wants, okay.” I started to walk out of our private corner and felt everybody’s eyes fall on me as I left it.

“Sure she’s sitting on the Reception waiting sofas.” Tiffany shouted. Seriously, did she really feel the need to shout? She was seriously milking the whole ‘my best friend has all the attention on her’ scenario.

I walked out of the hall, with eyes still trained on me, and crossed over to the opposite reception room, with the receptionists desk,  artwork, lots of paperwork and three cream sofas. Sitting on one of these sofas was, just as I had expected, Ava. She was perched on the edge, with her legs crossed showing off her blindingly white peep-toes that matched her equally coloured pencil skirt and blazer.

As she heard my voice, Ava’s head perked up, and her loosely curled hair swished with it. At the sight of me, her mouth spread into a wide smile, presenting me with two perfectly aligned rows of teeth.

“Talia, love, how are you?” Ava stood up and outstretched her arms. Without hesitation, I hugged her and mumbled a quick ‘I’m good thanks’.

After breaking away from the hug, she sat back on the soft sofa and I sat on the one opposite.

“Ava, I don’t mean to sound rude, but what exactly are you doing here?” I twiddled with the ends of my hair and looked straight at her. The smile remained plastered on her face,

“I did a little research and found out what school you go to,” I nodded slowly, “And I came to give you this.” Ava picked up a black and white purse from the wooden table between us that I didn’t even notice there and clicked it open. She pulled out a long loop of black fabric with a card dangling from the end.

Ava plopped the purse next to her and slid the card and necklace-type thing over to me.

“This,” she explained, “Is your pass into Pearl Square.”

“But Ava, I already have one remember, you gave it to me when I visited you.” I stated slowly.

“Ah, yeah, I know but new policy apparently. The ‘people’ say there needs to be proof of identification on every visitor pass, otherwise anyone could get in.”  I picked up the card and turned it over in my hand. My name was printed in bold on the card with my passport picture beside it.

Wait.

What?

My passport picture? The one that makes me look like a dead racoon? Great.

I looked angrily up at Ava, who simply shrugged.

 I dropped the pass into my bag and looked expectantly back at the glamorous woman in front of me. Ava’s mouth opened, if about to say something, when her words were cut off by the shrill sound of the bell, signalling for students to leave the hall and enter their classrooms.

“Can’t make you late, now can I?” she joked, smiling again. I was in the midst of responding, but she disappeared in a flash.

The remainder of the day, I was badgered with questions from different classmates, most being Tiffany.

“Talia, ooh, Talia, do you reckon you can get me the new Rose perfecting serum stuff, you know since, you’re so close to Ava?”

“Tali?  I saw you guys talking, and you seemed so casual, like you didn’t even know you were talking to the owner of one of the biggest cosmetics labels in the world!”

“Hey, Talia, we haven’t talked in ages, let’s catch up! So; I heard you and Ava Rose are really good friends!”

Comments and questions like these were constantly fired at me all day. I resorted to blocking out most questions and listening only to teachers. Mind you, that didn’t help; even the teachers had heard about my meeting with Ava and were asking me about it!

But one question during lunch caught my particular attention.

“Talia, how come Charlie wasn’t talking to Ava?” I was sitting with a large group of friends. The popular people you could say. The rumour spreaders, that’s more accurate.

Whoever asked that question had a point. Charlie was going to find out eventually about Ava coming to the school and talking to me.

Bingo.

Charlie was on a school trip to a nearby Science Museum, so wasn’t at school to hear about the situation first-hand. So, my mind developed a rather impressive plan.

“Guys, no. Just no,” I started, which caused their heads to all turn to me, “Never, ever; and I mean ever, mention Ava to Charlie. He doesn’t like her, and will go crazy if he finds out that people are saying my whole family loves her.”

The group surrounding me nodded slightly, soaking up the information. I took this as a cue to continue.

“So make sure everyone knows that. Don’t mention anything about this to Charlie, not even his friends, okay?” I heard responses of ‘okay’ and ‘I’m on it’ before over half of the group arose and left their lunches to inform every one of the ‘breaking news update.’

Well that was easy.

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Hey everyone! Sorry for not updating in 2 WHOLE WEEKS but here's chapter 10! Filler chapter, I know, but I promise things will definitely pick up. 

Thank you everyone!

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