That's Rose Adams

Rose

I look in the mirror and I like what I see. I see a normal, popular girl looking at me. But she might as well be called Emma Marks. I'm not me, but I'm the best me there is.

When I get to school everyone rushes towards me and starts telling me all the dull, pointless gossip they've discovered. I look across the courtyard and I see the familiar brown locks of my ex best friend Saffron. We drifted apart in 9th grade. She told me that I wasn't myself any more and she didn't like who I'd become. Which is ironic because everyone else seems to love who I've become.

My day follows a normal routine, wake up at 6:30 get dressed, do makeup, eat breakfast and go. My parents got divorced last summer and mums never home because she has to work to get the money to keep the house. She thinks Tom and I don't know how bad it's got but we know we're about to loose the house. I don't talk to tom much either. We share a bathroom and that's about as close as we get. He probably hates who I've become too but he understands it's what you have to do to survive.

Tom Adams, school legend. Captain of the soccer team, state campion basketball player, ladies man and overall school hunk. He practically invented the popularity system at South Coast, but he got kicked off the team for violence and then suspended to then being expelled for getting in a fight with the Gym teacher. Mum was unaware of this until last month because when she wasn't drunk and passed out on the sofa she was sorting through bills and paperwork.

Yes, my family's a shit storm. But schools where no one knows that and I'm living the high school dream. I put on my smile and I laugh but inside, I'm empty. A cold, dark, big empty space. So I guess my whole life's a shit storm. But as long as I look happy.