Blood Roses

chapter three

"You ran into someone didn't you?" Carrie soon comes out with as she examines my dress, which now has a few mud stains at the hem. She wasn't exactly the brightest in academics, but she sure could put together an amazing outfit and match clues up.

"Not someone I know. These... creeps were trying to coax me to catch a ride with them." The thought of what they could have done to me makes a cold shiver go down my spine.

"Oh. Well, you didn't totally ruin this dress, you just need to wash it, here, I'll dampen it, that should help."

Carrie; always helping out with anything to do with beauty, but not being one of those fake cake-makeup girls with the heavily drawn on eyebrows, no matter what Carrie was down to earth and always there for me, exactly why she's my best friend.

With a bit on sponging on the cream hem the mud was only obvious if you looked very closely, as for my makeup, well, that needed to be redone. Carrie was happy to do that for me and I ended up with simple eye shadow and mascara. Luckily though, the piece-de- resistance, the shoes, were still in perfect condition.

The music downstairs pumps loud as though triumphant in saving my outfit. All throughout Carrie's house, which is almost as large as mine, there are people everywhere. Most huddled in groups chatting with cups full of punch in their hands, some dancing, others sitting in a corner making out, then there were my friends, a mix of them all.

I spot Lily, dressed in her usual grunge outfit - faux leather high waisted shorts with a Rolling Stones tee, topped off with her bright red Converse that never seemed to get dirty. Lily, despite her sometimes reckless behaviour has been one of my best friends from the first day at school, she is the one person that I have known the longest and I know that I can count on to change to complete seriousness when I need her to be.

"Sup ma homie." Lily says with a raising of eyebrows.

I spot Rose from the other side of the room standing alone.

I can't help but laugh, typical Lily, trying to be 'gangster'.

"I think you should stick with just being Lily." Carrie says as she gently taps Lily on the shoulder while making her way to the soft drinks. Rose starts to make her way over to us, dressed in a floral dress that reaches to the knee, her black hair pulled back and put in an updo.

"Oh, whatever. Anyway, how did you sneak out this time?" Lily turns to me as she says this, probably expecting another one of my falling out of my brother's window stories.

"Well, as much as it is surprising - through the front door."

"What? Was no one home or what?"

"Yep, the house was full up of us, but I only had to get through Mum. You know how easy that is."

"True, but was it really that easy? Especially since you were all dolled up?"

"Way easier than I thought, Dad wanted me to go to this political dinner crap thing, but I thought, it's just going to be a repeat of all the others, so I walked on out. Speaking of food, do you have anything I can eat?" Damn that Ava for making me miss lunch, no matter what, food will never be missed out.

"Uh, on the bench I think there's some salad." Carrie states. She's so healthy; salad this, salad that, soon she'll have salad coming out of her ears. At least one thing with salad is that it's hazard free with good outfits, perhaps that's the reason why Carrie's always eating it, she doesn't want to ruin any of her designer outfits, or she's just a health freak anyway... 

I soon return with a small bowl filled with salad; tomatoes, lettuce, cold meat, cucumber and a few little things I can't quite identify, however it still tastes good.