Dark Roses #Wattys2019

Chapter 20

Today is a fresh new week, and after school Nina, Tia, and I decided to go to flattop grill to grab a bite to eat. I've never been before, but they told me that it was some stir fry place, and it was super delicious. I'll be the judge of that.

When we walked in, we were greeted with the aroma of amazing food. It wasn't too crowded either, so we should get seated right away.

"Man am I ready to eat." Tia said letting out a yawn.

I nodded my head in agreement as I heard my stomach growl.

"True." Nina responded.

When we finally went up to the stand and gave the workers the amount of people in our group, we were seated and handed menus. As I searched through it, there were so many options it was hard to pick one. I could either make my own stir fry, have an already created one, get tacos, and much more.

"Do the create your own stir fry, they have a lot of different sauces you can put on it, and veggies." Nina stated noticing my frustration. I think that's the best choice.

"Yeah I'll just do that." I laughed closing my menu. For the meat choice, I'll probably do salmon.

Soon enough our waiter started to approach our table, and let me tell you this, I honestly think it's a thing for every guy in this town to be attractive.

"Hold up wait a minute." Tia spoke squinting her eyes at him even though she wears glasses. Nina and I both laughed and looked at the waiter. When he finally reached our table, I could see Tia die in her seat for a little bit, but then come back to life.

"Hello my name is Shawn, I will be your waitress for today, consider yourselves lucky." He joked placing napkins on the table, and a plate of roti bread. The tortilla like looking bread looked heavenly.

"Oh I do consider myself very lucky today." Tia responded back winking at him. He let out a small chuckle.

"What can I get you beautiful ladies to drink today?" Shawn questioned.

I'll probably just take a water.

"Sierra Mist please." Nina requested.

"Lemonade, and your number." I heard Tia whisper at the end. I dont think he winded up hearing that part.

"Alright, and you?" He said looking at me. Right then, I froze looking into his eyes. They reminded me so much of Blaire's, I became hypnotized. Eventually the image of Blaire began to show up.

It was all as if Blaire was our waiter this whole time, and not the other guy.

"Rose why are you always spacing out?" I heard Nina speak. I automatically snapped out of it and shook my head in embarrassment.

"I'm so sorry, um water please?" I said embarrassed. I felt my face turning red.

"It's fine, I'll be right back." The waiter responded. Watch him not even come back, we'll probably have a new waiter.

"I hope you didn't scare him away." Tia spoke taking a huge bite out of a piece of the roti bread she grabbed. I rubbed my eyes for a second and then looked at my phone. I had a few text messages from my friends in Illinois, and that's about it.

I put my phone down, and then reached for the bread as well.

"I'm sorry, his eyes just reminded me of Blaire's for a second." I said taking a bite out of the piece of bread I grabbed. It tasted super good.

"What are you talking about, his eyes were brown." Tia said. I looked at Nina to see if she agreed with Tia. She shook her head yes.

"What the heck are you guys talking about?" I questioned. Suddenly, the waiter showed up with our drinks.

His eyes were indeed brown.

"Maybe hanging around the mentally ill is making you mentally ill too Rose." Tia mentioned grabbing her lemonade from the waiter. I know she was joking, but it kind of rubbed me the wrong way. People struggle with mental illnesses on a daily basis.

"Are you guys ready to order?" The waiter asked. We all shook our heads yes. We all basically said the same order, just with different meats. When he went to go grab the bowls for us, I began to speak.

"it's not cool to joke like that Tia, Blaire is a good guy, but just challenged," I said taking a sip out of my water. Her and Nina looked at each other, and then at me.

"I'm sorry, you're right. But..you might want to ask him about what happened at lunch today." Tia said grabbing more roti bread to eat. I looked at them both confused. I wasn't at lunch today because I had to finish writing an essay for english, what happened?

"What do you mean?" I questioned. Tia began to drink her lemonade, therefore leaving Nina to speak.

"Well..at lunch today..it seems like he said something that scared Eli..I don't really know what happened." She spoke looking at the table, and then at me.

"Can you please describe everything that you saw?" I asked politely. She nodded her head.

"It was me, Danny, Jackson, Tia, and Hanna at the lunch table right? We were talking about who knows what, and then we just heard Eli say out loud 'leave me the hell alone you freak, what the fuck is wrong with you?', or it was something along those lines. It wasn't super loud for the whole lunch room to hear, but he was at Blaire's table and threw a crumbled up note at him. Then we saw him walk off, and Blaire was sitting there laughing. I don't know what was more weird, seeing Eli react like that, or seeing Blaire laugh like that. It was almost as if....we were looking at the joker or something, it was creepy. Then he looked at me and his expression just..changed. Changed to something very..disturbing. I can't even describe the vibe I got from him." Nina spoke.

What the hell did Blaire do?

My mind began to wander off thinking about everything Blaire could have wrote in that note. A threat maybe? About me? I mean he was staring out the window when Eli dropped me off at home, is he jealous?

The waiter finally came back to the table with our bowls that we have to create the stir fry in, but I suddenly lost my appetite.

"I don't know Rose.." Nina spoke beginning to stand up with the bowl in her hand.

"You probably hear this a lot, but you just have to be careful."