Her Safe Haven

Chapter 11 - (Not) Your Usual Monday Morning

Previously on Her Safe Haven: Winter felt bad for what happened during lunch so she brought Rohan to the 'Path of Abandonment', a small path at Lakeside Town Park where people usually left strayed pets. Upon discovering a stray puppy, Winter told him that even though he never got to know his mother, he can know how his mother's love must felt like if he cares for a pet, as whatever love and care he must feel for the pet, his mother's love for him must be stronger than that. That night, Rohan returned to Lakeside Town Park alone to look at the mysterious light on the hill from the Cove of Two Lovers, and to adopt the puppy they encountered that afternoon as his pet.

Rose groaned as she walked to school that Monday morning. The guests from Dews High had returned to their hometown safely yesterday, but her student council workload for this week still seemed to be mountainous.

Well, she could ask Jonah to take over her work just for today, since she had classes until the evening and all, but that would mean that Jonah would be doing her work for her.

And Jonah plus paperwork put together would equate in a complete and utter disaster.

She shook that thought away from her mind and sighed as she entered the cafeteria. Her morning class would not start until another hour, so she better make use of this opportunity to recharge herself with some key lime pie.

As she expected, the cafeteria was still empty this early in the morning, except for one girl sitting at a table on the far corner. Rose could only see the girl's back, so she couldn't really make out who it was; but Rose noted that the girl had straight long blonde hair tied into a high ponytail, and as she walked further inside the canteen, she realised that she knew the owner of that blonde hair well.

The blonde girl turned around and grinned as soon as she saw Rose.

"GOOD MORNING, MONKEY!"

Rose cringed. Loud shout and indecent nickname could only mean one thing.

Rose walked lethargically with her pie towards the blonde, who was waving at her enthusiastically from the table. The pie tasted great, but if Rose had to enjoy it in the presence of this person...

"Well, hey! How come you didn't buy one for me?" the blonde pouted, taking a bite of the pie that Rose offered in surrender.

"Well, buy them yourself," Rose scoffed, "Tria-pig."

Tria huffed, taking another bite of Rose's pie while looking at her class schedule on her phone screen. "Can I take a look at your schedule, Monkey? I want to match our classes," she said in between munches.

Rose took out her own class timetable from her bag and sighed, "Like I want to share any extra time with you..."

Rose would never in her lifetime admit that she was secretly glad and smiling that Tria had decided to transfer to Lakeside High starting this year. Since Rose was totally busy last week, this was the first time that they could actually talk at school.

And regrettably, Rose was quite excited to spend this year with her annoying blonde best friend.

+++

The first thing Winter noticed that morning was that this was the first time she had woken up without any sound of blaring alarm clock.

The second thing she noticed, when she tried to get out of her bed, was that she started seeing white.

She fell to the floor almost immediately and grabbed onto the edge of her bed for support. Realising what was about to come, she quickly stood up and ran past her bed and into the bathroom—