la vie en rose | blake richardson

six

How about we take a short walk down memory lane.

It was a Tuesday morning, and Blake and Cassie were in English class: a subject Cassie loved but Blake absolutely hated.

"Blake, please help me," Cassie sighs, slouching back in her chair, fingers wavering over the keys of her laptop as she thought over what to type.

"No," Blake mumbled, head and arms laid on the table, his arms pillowing his head as he faces Cassie.

"How am I supposed to write an essay about the characteristics and evidence that showed he was a serial killer if I never even saw the whole movie?"

"Read the brainstorm I wrote!" Blake slides the piece of paper across the desk to Cassie.

"These are song lyrics," Cassie rolls her eyes, pushing the paper back.

"Yeah, 'we call it karma, come on, you've never heard it before? what goes around comes around'," Blake sits back up in his chair, reading over the lyrics on the piece of paper, "it was all karma. He wasn't treated correctly as a child, so he lashed out as an adult. He killed those people because they were living a life free from past neglect trauma, so he decided to kill them because they were responsible."

"We have to write about the symptoms, signs, tip offs. That's just the conclusion, which is many paragraphs away from where we are now," Cassie sighs, taking the paper back and slipping it into her English book for later.

"Okay, but how am I meant to know the characteristics of someone who wants to slit peoples throats?" Blake chuckles, "I'm not about that life."

"You're studying someone's movements and expressions, not picking their brain apart."

"Okay, well you do that, then." Blake crosses his arms, sat back in the chair.

"I will slam your hand in the cash register tonight if you don't help me out," Cassie threatens.

"How am I meant to read a killer?"

"You can read me like a book, and basically everyone else around you. He's only acting, it's a movie. He should be easy to crack."

"Why don't you study it? You want to be a videographer."

"I've already written a paragraph about a brief amount angles and settings, lightings and so on, that suggested that something was going to happen or that he had a dark thought. But that's not even what the essay is supposed to be about."

"Just brainstorm what you picked up on, write it down, and I'll put the essay together, okay? You don't have to do any hard work," Cassie reasons, Blake now finally agreeing.

"I'm sorry. I just can't pick up a pen without writing a song. I can't do something as simple as listing the way someone acts."

Blake was right, because if he was capable of doing something as simple as putting together the way someone acted, he would have picked up on how Cassie had been acting recently.

He would have picked up on how they were in their last year of secondary school and Cassie was scared because all she knew was she liked cameras and interior design. But Blake on the other hand had his whole career lined out, he already had managers and a longterm job that could, if done right, pocket him a living for the rest of his life.

But to be fair, Cassie wasn't great at figuring out how to read someone, either. She hadn't read that Blake was conflicted about whether or not he should move on to go to college and stay in school or if he should leave after his GCSE's. He loved his band and he loved music, but school meant Cassie and tour just didn't.