Rose Bloom

Chapter 1: A Difficult Life

The Volvo parked at the special lot in the schoolyard. A fourteen year-old girl stepped out. She had long chestnut wavy hair, tied up in a blue ribbon, her eyes were chocolate brown, and she wore a pretty blue lace dress. She looked like a peaceful person; kind that never starts arguments or wants any enemies. Her name was Rosemary Bunch, student in eighth grade at the city’s central school. She was exceptionally smart, and pretty, but she had huge family problems.

First of all, her parents were divorced. Her father had married another woman, who had a daughter of her own. Her mother had also remarried, and she and her new husband had adopted a son. But Vera (Rosemary’s mother) had psychical problems and Mark (Rosemary’s father) was always busy, so her stepparents tried to take care of her as well as they could, because they did love her, but it wasn’t the same thing.  The good parts were that she got along best with her siblings, and her parents’ houses were very close.

There were good and bad parts about her everyday life. Mary (as everyone called her) was an optimist, so for her the bad parts weren’t so bad. As she got out of the car, she turned to the woman at the steering wheel.

“Molly, I appreciate that you take me to school -and back- while Cris is at the hospital with Mom, but honestly, I have my own feet, I can walk.”

Molly smiled:

“I’m sure you can, but I promised your father I’ll be in charge of getting you safely to school. I know that might seem paranoid, but he says that because he loves you”

Mary rolled her eyes, watching her stepmother drive away. As soon as the car was out of sight, VJ jumped out of the bushes hugging her.

VJ was her boyfriend. She kept him secret from her father and Molly, because Mark could be really paranoid, and Molly would tell her husband if she saw Mary and VJ together. Instead VJ was no secret to Vera and Cris, Vera was too sick to mind, and Cris considered it was not his business. Cris had a company, and he got tons of money from that, so Mary usually stayed at her mother’s. But there were times when Vera had fits, and she was doing crazy things, so Cris and her would be at the hospital for a few weeks, so Mary and Sam (her half-brother)

would have to stay at Mark’s. It wasn’t bad once you get used to it, but it may be harder than you think.

“Stop scaring me like that!” shouted Mary.

“I’m not scaring you; I just don’t want to be seen.”

VJ was aware of the fact that Mark was a cop, so he didn’t want to risk anything. Mary was going to point out her father was nowhere nearby, and that car was actually Molly’s, but then she considered it useless.

“Whatever! Let’s go to class. I don’t want to be late.”

“I don’t see what the big deal in being late is. Nobody can punish you for that. Believe me, I know from experience.”

VJ used to be a ‘bad boy’, but Mary convinced him to change, and he did, but a part of him still missed the old VJ. So you couldn’t say he had radically changed, but it was good enough for Mary, as long as he acted decent while being with her. Still, she had gotten a lot of enemies from doing that. VJ’s ex-girlfriends said Mary had corrupted him, but she really didn’t care.

“Are you coming or not?” teased Mary.

As an answer he gave a quick kiss, and then took her to class. Even if he was one year older than the rest of the class, he had failed eighth grade, and had to stay one more year. Which made him not-so-smart either, so could you believe his girlfriend was the class’s geek? There were many differences between Mary and VJ, but they could cope with them. Mary accepted his weirdness –with a limit, of course, and VJ had to give up his ‘bad boy’ habits. So, all in all, they were a happy couple.