Danger Signs // Demi Lovato // 4

5. You Should Know That I Won't Back Down

Their smiles fell as they saw me, morphing into slight confusion.

Then it was my turn to be confused when they came towards me, Brie sitting next to me, Emma in front of her, in the first row.

"So, you switched or something?" Brie asked under her breath, pulling a notebook from her bag, AKA the only thing organized in her life.

"Yeah."

"Oh," Emma said. After that, she turned, flipping her straight, blonde hair behind both shoulders. She was a bright person, and happy most of the time, but I knew when she did that, it meant she wasn't too happy.

Brie, on the other hand, was much darker in comparison. She was more tanned than me—and I'm half Mexican, so that's saying something—with dark brown hair, hanging in loose waves past her shoulders. She was the kind of person who loved her long hair, but constantly wanted to cut it because of how annoying it was.

Their clothing choices also reflected their differences as well, Emma liking lighter colors, especially pastel blue, while Brie was more of a wannabe scene kid. She wore band shirts almost every day, studded jewelry and shoes, and faded, ripped jeans, scrawled with lyrics in different colored Sharpies. I didn't know if she was trying to go full scene, but with her hair and how she did her makeup, it wasn't working. And her backpack was bright pink. With some rose gold studs, of course.

Emma, star student she is, handed her homework in with a huge smile as Ms. Collins announced that class was starting. I was obviously exempt for the day, and I got a few harsh glares.

It could be a lot worse.

Class dragged on, me feeling eyes on me the entire time.

By the end, we had a few minutes to spare, so everyone packed up, and started chatting.

"So, Rosie," Brie said.

I glanced at her.

"I heard you had your middle name changed."

Emma stared at me and I ignored her.

I shrugged. "And? Why does it matter to you?"

"Well, I know it was your mom's name, so I was just wondering." Brie almost sounded nice, but I could still hear the venom in her words. She knew exactly what would get to me. My name had been Rosalina Beatriz Vargas. I'd never liked my middle name so I'd asked that it be changed with my last name so it became Rosalina Camila Lovato. I no longer had to be haunted by my mother's name.

"Well, I'm sorry I didn't wanna be named after someone who chose drugs over me." I flashed her a small, but condescending smile, before collecting my bag, just as the bell rang.

Emma was stunned by my words, Brie open mouthed, along with a few people around me who had overheard. But I quickly made my way out to head to second period.

Oh, lord, this was gonna be a long day.

~//~//~//~//~//~//~

During my lunch period, I decided to stay in my art class to keep working. We were doing a study of shading, and since my fingers were covered in charcoal and chalk—and I had no one to sit with—I asked Ms. Russell if it was okay. She said yes, even though she had a class coming in. I tensed, carefully watching as students came in, some still eating their lunch. Luckily most of the kids in this class belonged to the group that didn't bother me.

"This is my seat," a black haired girl chomping on a piece of gum told me. I glanced around, seeing several empty seats.

"Find somewhere else to sit, Jayden," Ms. Russell called from her desk. "Rosie was here first."

Jayden's eyebrow went up and she walked behind me, pulling the chair that was next to me out so she could sit. She left her jacket and bag, then got up to get whatever she was working on from across the room. When she came back, she held a single piece of gray drawing paper and a tin of pencils. The drawing she was working on was of a snowy cabin with a frozen lake, a sketch of a girl twirling around. She cleared the table and started looking through the pencils.

"That's really good," I blurted before I could stop myself.

To my surprise, she smiled and looked at my half-finished spheres, cubes, and ribbons. Normally, we would use a still life with styrofoam shapes and paper ribbons with a lamp shining on it, but Ms. Russell was making us use our brain to figure out the shading.

"You're not so bad yourself. Lovato, right?"

Oh no, here it comes.

I nodded.

Jayden nodded.

"Cool," she said. "I heard you told off that dickhead and the asshole in the same class." For this, she kept her voice low, but I was confused. "Miles and Barnes," she clarified with a little roll of her eyes.

"Oh, yeah, I guess."

"You guess? I heard it was awesome. And when your moms came in." She chuckled.

"Where'd you hear all that from?" I asked.

"My brother is in that class. Jordan Richardson?"

She waited for me to acknowledge if I knew him or not, but she didn't answer how she knew about my moms coming in. Finally, I nodded. "I think I remember seeing him."

"Yeah, he looks a lot like me. Twins."

"Cool." To be honest, I didn't remember seeing him, I just remembered his name being called during roll and a husky voice mumbling "Here" from behind me.

We were silent, everyone else chatting away, pencils scratching across paper.

"People suck," Jayden said suddenly. I looked over to see her shooting daggers toward the door. When I looked, I saw Miles smirking at both of us before continuing down the hall. "Such an ass. What did you ever do to him anyway?"

"Literally nothing except get adopted." I sighed.

"Wow." She started packing up her pencils and I realized I had study hall soon. "Hand," Jayden said, grabbing my hand before I could react. With a Sharpie, she wrote a phone number on the back of it.

"You realize I have to wash my hands right?" I asked.

"Duh. That's why I used this. It'll stay on. Text me if you need anything." She put her now finished drawing in the turn-in tray and grabbed her jacket and bag while I packed up and washed the black charcoal from my fingers. The Sharpie barely faded at all.

I mentally slapped my forehead, realizing my insane moms would probably think it was a guy's number. They hadn't given me the sex talk, but I knew it would be coming soon once they saw the number.

I could only hope this wouldn't turn into a disastrous situation when I got home.