The Petals Fall

Chapter 1

He turned the car back on and drove me to school where I was immediately intimidated by the amount of students and I just thought oh fuck.

"Okay...I'm gonna do this", I say to myself preparing to get out of the car.

"Wait, Rose!", he shouts. He hugs and kisses my forehead. "I love you Rose. Have a good day!"

"I love you too dad", I reply back as I'm leaving the car and heading to the big doors of the school - which have the ugliest brown color I have ever seen. I look around at the students and start to get nervous because I don't see anyone that has any "quirks" or anything; they all look just the same somehow. I realize how many people are staring at me because I stand out so much. Oh God, just avoid them. I'm thinking to myself as I bump into a girl with brown hair and a cute shirt with a bunny on it and a pair of ripped jeans. Oh gosh. I blush and look down from her face which I haven't even tried to look at. She stops me.

"Wait. I haven't seen you before," she says, "Well I guess you would be hard to miss with all of that pink." She begins giggling and I look at her, she has a thin face and she's skilled with makeup though I can't tell if she's making fun of me.

"I'm sorry," I force out looking at her. She giggles again.

"Don't be sorry, it's obvious you're nervous! Want me to show you around?"

I smile, more relaxed now. "Yeah, thanks sweetie," I blush realizing what I said.

"Did you just call me sweetie? That's cute. I like you. My name's Collins, Kylie Collins." She says this in a James Bond voice and I giggle a little bit.

"I like you too, Kylie Collins! You seem...quirky," I say with a nervous laugh.

"So what's your name, pink girl?", she asks.

"Rose Love", I answer.

"Oh my god!", she exclaims, bouncing a hand off her forehead and laughing, "of course the pink girl would be named Rose!"

"So where would be my locker?", I say hurriedly trying to change the subject.

She responds, "Well, what is your locker number?"

"Wait a second, my schedule is in my bag!", I pull it out of the inside pocket of my bag and hand it to her.

"Okay let's see here.." She says this with a contemplative look on her face and finally responds, "Okay this way!" She leads me down the large central hallway and we walk for a minute and stop at a locker on the right side of the space and she uses the code on the paper and opens it. "There you go!" she says while looking at me and I put my backpack in it and take out a couple of notebooks.

"Thanks Kylie! Do you know where my first class is by chance?" I say nervously.

She looks at my paper and then looks down the hall, she finally says, "It should just be down this hall on the left side. If you need any help just ask a teacher. Okay Rose?"

"I think I've got it from here, thank you very much Kylie! I hope we'll meet again!" I say walking to my first hour class, pre calculus.

As I'm walking I suddenly feel really happy and I almost squeal. She said she liked me! I ride this high all the way to the class and when I finally arrive, of course I do not like the class. Mr. Ludwig was constantly on other peoples' case and all I was thinking was Give us a break it's the first day! And as if he could read my mind he yelled at me to pay attention when he was going over the class rules. The bell finally rang and I practically sprinted out of the class. I had to stop and ask people where the physics classroom was and it was really embarrassing. I finally made it and I was pleasantly surprised to find a familiar face. "Kylie!" I shouted so loud the whole class heard. Everyone looked at me and I blushed again.

Kylie walked up to me and said, "Hey Rose! We have the same class!"

I respond sarcastically, "I couldn't tell."

"I tried to tell you but you left before I could say." She told me with a mock annoyed face. "Well I know now! Wanna sit together or do you have a friend that isn't giant and or pink?" "Nahhh people usually find me weird so they would rather avoid me."

"So you have no friends?"

I reply surprised. "I mean...unless you count...not really." I hug her and pet her head. "You are a precious bean and I shall be your friend!" She tries to say something but then the teacher tells at us to get to our seats. We then scramble to the only two desks open and giggle. I whisper to her, "Do you have any other classes with me?"

"Yeah. I think we have World History together," she responds. My face lights up and I smile wide, and scream "Yaaaayyy!" I practically yell and then blush bright red when I notice that everyone is looking at me and I hide behind my books. Kylie looks at me.

"Can you not do that ever again?"

I look back still blushing "Yeah...sure."

I spend the rest of class trying my hardest to pay attention to Mr. Roal talking about the class and how it's going to go. However most of the time I was thinking about the utterly embarrassing thing I had just done. I left class as soon as the bell rang and went to my next class, Latin, which is a very interesting class because the teacher tells us we will be learning about the origins of root words in the English language and other things like the meanings and the culture.

My next two classes are Creative Writing and Psychology, and they go the same way. Basically introductions and explaining what we will be learning about in the class. After Psychology is over, the lunch bell rings, and at this point I'm starving so like everyone, I'm sprinting to the lunch room. I arrive there and realize that it's pretty big. There must be at least 30 long tables and there's dozens of students milling around all over the cafeteria. I can see the different groups of people sitting next to each other: the jocks, cheerleaders, goth kids, and then a couple of others like a few groups studying or doing homework (Which I don't understand how that's possible).

There's only only one person I'm looking for while walking slowly throughout the cafeteria with my packed lunch in hand until I spot Kylie sitting alone and I think to myself, "Wow she wasn't kidding she doesn't have any friends." I feel bad as soon as I think it. I trek over to her table and give her a big hello, and by big I mean I'm screaming "HEY KYLIE!!" over the noise of the other screaming students and waving like I'm trying to get saved from a deserted island until she notices and smiles warmly at me waving back. I sit next to her and smile happily taking out my lunch as she's eating and I begin eating my own. We sit there next to each other.

"Is there anywhere else that we can sit? Because it's way too noisy in here!" I ask.

"We can eat outside if that's okay!"

I reply with a yes a little too quickly and we get up and head out the back doors of the school, sitting down on some steps. We sit there awkwardly for a minute.

"Thanks for helping me this morning...I was a nervous wreck until you, well, wrecked into me," I said.

"You wrecked into me!" she replies and I resign.

"Fair enough."

She then asks me, "So why'd you move here to Northampton, Michigan!" she says, waving her arms around and I giggle.

"Now that's cute." she says so casually to me and I blush for the millionth time today because of her and I look down hoping to hide it.

"Well, we wanted a fresh start, my father and I. We just kinda picked a random place far away from home, which ended up being here."

"So it was just random chance?"

"Basically, I guess. I mean there was a couple of towns we picked but this was the one we went with."

She then asks me, "So what's up with the pink hair?" I think about it and then I respond.

"I suppose after moving here I wanted to change something about myself, like a 'new place, new me' kinda thing y'know?" I replied while looking at her stuff her face with her lunch and I giggle again.

"Yeah, totally." she says with her face full. I laugh and I look at her.

"I like you, Kylie Collins."

"I like you too, Rose Love." We sit next together for the rest of lunch like we've been friends forever and I'm happy that this is where I ended up.