la vie en rose | blake richardson

fourteen

When Blake Richardson was fifteen years old, a girl named Cassie Anderson started at his secondary school.

The rumour as to why she joined the school was that her Mum had just married a new man, so they moved to a new area of the city, which was actually the case. A couple people seemed to already know Cassie, who had gone to Primary School together, but obviously people grow between the age of eleven and fifteen.

Cassie was in a few of Blake's classes, those being music, french and english. She was terrible at music and was always being told off in class, which she hated, but she didn't understand what she had to do. Blake never understood why she took music if she didn't have any talent in it, but she kept taking it until her last year because she still enjoyed it. She always nailed the research assignments, on the rare occasion that there was one.

Obviously Blake had heard the rumours. He had heard about the boy from her last school and how he cheated on her. He had heard about how she apparently sucked a guy off at the back of the field when he was really just flirting with her as she smoked a cigarette, and the guy had a big mouth that liked to lie.

Cassie has heard about Blake and how he was some highly attractive musician. She had heard about his band and that he liked driving teachers up the walls. She thought he was a pretty hilarious guy from what she had heard, and when she started working at the same supermarket as him, they both instantly had questions for each other.

"You didn't really suck him off after school, did you?" Blake spoke as more of a statement than a question, the first thing he said to Cassie as she stood at the bagging area next to the counter.

"No, I was smoking a cigarette," Cassie speaks timidly, feeling extremely ugly in the red polo uniform.

   "That's what I said you were probably doing," Blake nods, "yep, people usually make up rumours when they catch people smoking. It's like some form of secondary school blackmail."

   "That whole school seems to be full with blackmail, which makes a loyal person like you and I seem like some kind of basket case," Cassie rolls her eyes, tapping her fingers on the wood of her station.

   "Yeah, tell me about it," Blake scoffs, "people wonder why I have no friends there anymore. Everyone's full of jack."

   "You're dating one of the girls I sit with at lunch, right?"

   "Yeah, I am," Blake slightly blushes, "she's your friend?"

   "Friend? I can barely hear her name past the amount of fake gossip that comes from her mouth," Cassie chuckles, "I would barely call her a proud fellow student. None of those people are my friends."

   "Then why do you hangout with them?" Blake furrows his eyebrows.

   "Because one upon a time, some of those people were my friends. But the only friend I have now is Andy Sandberg shows and my cat," Cassie speaks with a smile, although nothing in her tone was happy.

   "My friends don't even live in Manchester," Blake frowns, "I have to get a train to meet them every weekend. Well, one of them lives here, but he's on the other side of the city. It's too difficult to see him throughout the week."

   "Oh, I'm sorry," the corner of Cassie's lip curls, "hey, we're going to be working together from now on, so I guess we could be friends eventually."

   "Yeah, eventually," Blake nods.

   Eventually. That was the sad thing. Both parties had been so hurt that they had to get to know each other before eventually starting a friendship with each other. It had to be planned.