Cepheus

Chapter One: Rose Mavericks's Rose

AN
I know a lot about horses. Sorry.

There are thirty-two safe places in Rose Mavericks Academy for Rose Mavericks.

In his private room, where he is boarded up away from the rest of the students on weekends- is at the top of his list of refuges he's been forced to find for himself in order to survive. Others that are close if not in his top ten: the boys' bathroom that had an out-of-order sign taped onto its creaky door; the space of the third floor's main-window's sill, where he hides behind the dusty, velvet curtains in attempt to ignore every student except two; the last table in the main dining room, where his back is to the window and the servers know better than to bend down or brush up against him; and, the bottom of the swimming pool.

Which is a new one.

He hadn't previously had any affairs with the swimming pool that basically wiped out every other school in North America. It was big, deep, apparently the size the Olympians use.

"Rose Von Maveri-" it had been the last, very interrupted, words he heard coming from the headmaster, whose other alias was 'father', 'dad', or when he wouldn't listen: 'daaaad'.

At the bottom of the pool, fully clothed, he knows he's going to have to welcome the inevitable with a very fake smile that makes his dad cringe. Rose doesn't do outings, or crowds, or celebrations.

His dad knows this. He knows this because he learned the hard way, when he forced him to go to Disney World and they went home four days early with a bawling, runny-nosed Rose who wouldn't stop crying because the world was just too big for a five year old.

Don't misunderstand Rose, he isn't a clinically depressed teenager who is pro-ann, or anything severe. But he does hate the world outside of Rose Mavericks Academy. Out there, where this place feels like an entire universe with secret pockets of galaxies, it is nothing but a thumb-tack of the internationally recognized boarding schools for geniuses. Which, yeah, is sort of a big deal, but when locals or visitors pass this place, they stare wide-eyed for a few seconds before they turn their heads away and go years without even thinking once about his sanctuary.

Out there, where his father is trying to tell him he'll be going, are freaking idiots.

Rose knows intelligence can be measured by different units, for instance- the art prodigy that neighbors his room is tutored for math and science, yet he's barely passing with a D. The kid that could absolutely leave you breathless with any instrument that happened to have strings is failing english. And the certifiable genius is horrible at tests, ask anyone- she hardly passes, but if she isn't put underneath any pressure, the high school papers are forced to be traded out for college lessons.

So, maybe Rose Mavericks Academy is synonymous for School of Quirks.

Maybe Rose Mavericks doesn't give a shit.

He's beneath the water for a minute and thirty-two seconds, he knows because he counts.

"Did you actually jump in the water to avoid me?" His father is standing at the edge of the pool, shiny leather oxford shoes side-stepping puddles of chlorine water.

Rose's father didn't look like Rose. His mother had been full blood native american, and his father was as white a they seemed to come. He was a ginger too, pale with freckles that hadn't translated onto Rose's tan skin.

"I did, yeah," Rose said. Rose Mavericks Academy forced- or as his dad likes to say- asked their student body to wear navy blue suits- for the girls, if they wished, skirts- in the winter months. The winter blazer Rose had buttoned up this morning felt like a heavy wet blanket, giving the seventeen year old the sickest feeling as he scrambled with wet khakis, shoes, and worst of all, socks.