Kitsune (my original novel)

Chapter Three

Rose found the food court to be the most interesting place in the whole building. It was a concentration of all the demographics stuffed into a tiny corner. Watching them all trying to get along peacefully was extremely entertaining to her. There were the teenage burn outs that hung around in the exact middle of the area. They never ate anything and almost always had cups of water from the restaurants around them. The wild little kids that ran around the perimeter screaming while their mothers drank coffee and tried to pretend everything was perfectly normal. The women who had no children and ate salads while looking on at the child chaos disapprovingly. The elderly people that begrudgingly made their way into the mall and took a half hour looking at the menu.Then ultimately deciding to just go home and eat. And finally the people who work at the mall. They've grown tired of all the food there, but have to eat it anyway. They silently scowl at everyone in the court and mostly sit on their phones while trying to force down the same kind of burger they've eaten three days in a row.  

There were other kinds of groups of course, but those were the ones Rose had seen the most often on her many trips to the mall. Teenage girls also flocked around the mall too, but they were hardly ever in the food court. And if they were they never ate food, especially if there were guys they thought were attractive around. If they were in the food court they were usually just drinking smoothies. Sometimes they'd all huddle around a single serving of fries eating one at a time. Rose, Zara, and Serena were being those girls at the moment. Serena had the biggest crush in the world on Derek, the captain of the male soccer team. He worked at The Smoothie Shack, so naturally the first thing Serena mentioned when they stepped through the sliding glass doors was how thirsty she was. She made a bee line for the food court with her hand tightly wound around Zara's. Rose had no choice except to follow along with them. She veered to the right when Zara and Serena got in line and over to the fry stand. Yes. There is a whole food establishment dedicated to just fries. She could hear Serena's obnoxious flirty laugh echo around the court. She had been trying to land Derek since junior year and it still hadn't happened. He was the only guy in school not swayed by her perfect face and wardrobe. Rose tried to explain to her once that maybe Derek was interested in personality as well as looks, but she didn't understand.  

After she got her order she headed to the table Serena and Zara were already sitting at, positioned just so Serena could gawk at Derek without him noticing. She sat down and Serena gave her the most disgusted face Rose had ever seen anyone give another person. 

"What?" she asked as she stuck a fork in the chilli cheese fries. 

"Are you seriously going to eat that?" Serena pushed her smoothie around with her straw. 

"Well, I didn't buy it just to look at it." Rose picked up a fry and put it in her mouth. She had to suppress a smile as she watched Serena's face distort into an even more revolted expression. 

"Rosalyn, do you realize how many calories are in a serving of those things?" she did a hair flip. 

"It's Rose, you know this. And I don't really care about calories. I never have and I never will." she took an even bigger fork full of fries and tried her best to stuff them in her face as messily as she could. 

"It's not like Rose even needs to worry about that sort of thing anyway." Zara cut in, "She's the kind of thin that can eat anything and not suffer any consequences." 

"That's not the point. One day her metabolism is going to slow down and she's going to be wishing she listened to me. I'm just looking out for you, Rose. As a friend." Serena's attention turned back to Derek, he was looking their way. She sat up a little taller in her chair and tried to play with her drink while looking flirty. Rose glared over at Zara while Serena was distracted. Zara gave her a sympathetic shrug. She knew better then anyone how much of a pain Serena could be. They had been friends longer then Rose and Zara. Serena and Zara knew each other since they were babies. Their mothers became friends at Gymboree and kind of forced the two of them to be too. They were nearly inseparable until Rose moved to Starling Hollow in 4th grade. Then the duo became a trio and they had all only been friends with each other ever since.