At a Crossroads

Chapter One

“Hey Rose! How was your summer?” “Hey Roselynn!” “What's up rose?” “Yo Rosie!” I hear as I make my way through the students fresh off of summer break. I smile and wave to everyone who calls to me. First day of school, sounds great doesn't it? Well, this year is special, it's my senior year! I can't wait to get our of here, I plan to go to college on cheer scholarship. I mean, I love cheering and I'm the caption of my school's squad. I find my locker and realized someone has been following me. I turn around to see Niall trying to sneak up on me, “Nice try Niall. But you need to remember I'm used to stuff like that. Liam is my twin brother.” He wraps his arm around my waist pulling me closer to him so our faces are in inch apart. He kisses me and looks into my eyes, “Well, I need to get a better plan no don't I.” I look into his bright blue eyes and smile, “That you do babe, that you do. Now, can I please get in my locker?” He gives me one more quick kiss and lets go of me. I smile as I twist the lock, I think I might have found my soul mate. Niall really is the perfect boyfriend, we have been dating for over two years now and he still gives me butterflies. And not only is he adorable in every way, he is super sweet, my family loves him, and he is just perfect for me. “Rose.” He snaps me out of my thoughts. “Yeah Nialler?” He chuckles at his nickname, “Do you want to do something after school?” Oh no, “I can't sorry. Remember, Mondays and Fridays are family nights.” He rolls his eyes, I hate upsetting him. “And every other day of the week you have practice.” I grab my stuff for my first class and close my locker, facing Niall. “I'm sorry babe. How about Saturday? We can make Saturdays our days.” He half smiled. “I think we can make that work.” I smile and hear someone yelling my name down the hall. I turn to find Lyric running towards me, her long, wavy, auburn hair flowing behind her and her green eyes wide with panic. How she can run in cowboy boots I will never understand, or how she is dating on of the biggest punks in our school Luke Hemmings. “Roselynn! Oh my gosh! I have terrible news!” She is mumbling to herself, I guess about what she is freaking out about. “Lyric, calm down hun and tell me.” She took a deep breath, “Savanah broke her ankle!” My eyes grew wide. “What?! How?!” She calmed herself down more, “She was on trampoline practicing her flips and stuff and well... Oncw went wrong.” I started to panic, “What are we going to do?! We need her!” She smiles, “Why are you smiling?!” She giggles, “There was a new girl wanting to join the squad. I heard her talking about it today.” I motion for her to continue. “Her name is Ashlyn Clifford. Her and her brother moved down here over the summer and-” I cut her off. “Alright! Tell her to stop by practice tomorrow.” Luke rolled his eyes, “That was rude to cut her off like that.” I glared at him, “I'm sorry I didn't mean to cut you off Lyric. But like I said tell her to be a practice tomorrow.” Lyric smiles, “Will do.” Luke gives me a dirty look as Lyric pulls him away. Niall laughs, “Hyper one isn't she?” I nod, “Yeah, that's why I love her and all that energy makes her a great cheerleader. I just don't get how she ended up with that jerk.” I rolled my eyes, “He isn't a bad guy, I don't get why you hate him so much.” I sigh, “Our parents hate each other and I did try to be his friend but he was a jerk.” He makes an 'O' shape with his mouth and doesn't say thing else. We start walking towards my first class to drop of my books when Liam and his girlfriend Dessalyn walk up to us. “Hey sis!” Liam greets with a smile. “I thought I said no contact at school.” He frowns, “I'm kidding. Hey Bro! What's up?!” I look over at Dessalyn, her blonde hair had gotten blue highlights over the summer, making her blue eyes stand out even more. Her style had changed though, she's wearing a bright orange shirt with a pair of yellow skinny jeans and white converses, “Hey Dess, how are you.” She smiles, “I'm great. How are you?” As I open my mouth to r respond when Liam cuts me off, “Sorry Rose, but we have to steal your boyfriend. Coach needs to see him.” I give Niall a puppy face, “Alright, I will see you after first bell?” He nods giving me a quick kiss on the cheek. Him and Liam high-five and the three of them start walking the way Liam and Dessalyn had came. I walk slowly towards the English hallway, not really wanting to go in there. I don't have a class with Niall until 3rd bell and we have lunch together and that's it. Plus, I hate English, I am horrible at it. I feel so bad for lying to him earlier, I just can't tell him about my dance classes. Every Monday and Friday I have dance and I don't want anyone to know about it. The only ones who know are my family and the people in my class, but that's just one of the many things no one knows about me. I walk into Mrs. Harris' door and realize, I'm really early. I am never this early, it feels weird. There is only one other student in the room, and I have clue who he is. His hair is bright blue and he has his head down but I could tell he is wearing a Blink182 shirt. I walk over to him, my high tops aren't making much noise so I hope I don't scare him. “Hey! I'm Roselynn Winters! Welcome to Hills High School!” He looks up at him and I see his clearly for the first time. He has almost Hazel eyes and a strange scar on his forehead, he half smiles. “Hi, I didn't realize I ordered the welcome wagon.” He snapped going to lower his head back on his desk. “No need for the attitude,” I say still smiling, “I was just trying to be nice. You could at least tell me your name.” He pulled his head back up, glaring at me. “Michael,” He spat, “But, sorry sweetheart,” He looked me up and down, “You're not really my type.” I stared at him appalled, stifled a laugh, “Well first 'sweetheart' I have a boyfriend. Seconds There was no need to be rude. Excuse me for trying to be nice.” He chuckled, “I don't need your nice. I can make friends on my own.” I glared at him while he just smirked, “Whatever jackass don't expect to make friends with that attitude.” I turned and stormed back to my seat, sitting in the front of the class trying to be as far away from him as possible. I text Niall to see how long he is going to take, hoping I get to see him before class. And to makes this worse, coach is going to be keeping him until ,at least, when the bell rings. I look up to see Karissa walking in with Calum right behind her, and I mean right behind her. Karrisa and Calum are so cute together. She is thin with bouncy, thin, brown hair that curls in little ringlets. She wore glasses but they couldn't hide her vivid brown eyes, “Hey Karrisa! Hey Cal!” She smiled and Calum waved, playing around on his phone. “Hey Roselynn! How's your first day of school going so far?” I shrug, “Pretty good, Niall had to randomly go see coach and I'm not exactly sure why.” She looked like she was kind of upset, “I'm sure he will tell you later, he always does.” She does have a point. I sit there for a minute, deciding whether or not I should ask if she is alright or not. “Calum?” I hear coming from the back of the class, I turn around and remember that Michael is the only one back there. He is staring at Calum as he looks up, “Yo Mikey!” Calum calls. “You know him?” I ask a bit more snippy then I intended. Calum nod, “Yeah, we used to go to school together. How are you man?” Calum walks over to him. I turn back around to face Karissa, but I swear to you there was a smirk on Michael's face. “So, how did the contest go?” She entered a writing contest a couple months ago, her submission was in the final three and they just found our who won. “I placed second, that's good, I guess.” So that's why she's upset. “At least you placed in the top three!!” I say cheerfully and she sighs, “Better then what I would have done! Isn't there another one coming up?” I say hoping it might cheer her up. “Yeah, in a couple months.” She mumbles, “But, I'm sure if I want to enter it.” I stand up to be eye level with her, “You better! If you do, I will too.” She starts laughing, “Rose you know as well as I do, you aren't a very good writer.” I shrug, “Fair enough. But, you seriously have to enter it.” She continues laughing. “Alright, alright. I'll enter it.” I jump up and down smiling, “Yay!” She smirks. “But, you have to enter it too.” My smile faded, “Not yay..”Calum walks over to us, “What's not yay? He asks. “Since Karissa is doing the other writing contest, I have to as well.” He burst into laughter “Rosie, you suck at writing.” I push him, “You think I don't know that. I'm going to need help from someone.” I look at both of them. “Don't look at me,” They say in unison. “Help about I help you out?” I hear from behind me, I turn around and face Michael, “Why would I want your help?” I snap. “So you don't look like an idiot.” He has a point, “What's in it for you?” He looks a Karissa, “What's the prize?” She looks at me then him then me again. “Uhhh, First place, 500£Second place, 400£ and Third place, 300£.” He crosses his arms and smirks. “If we place, we split the money 50/50.” I look at Calum and Karissa, who are both nodding in encouragement. “Fine.” I say as icy as possible.” I turn to Karissa, “You're lucky I love you.” The bell rings and the classroom gets flooded with students. This is going to be a long school year.