- SUMMER -

The bell ringing at school was one of my favourite things to hear in the world. Although it did depend.

Sometimes it was ear splitting in the morning, signalling the start of a mournful day of lessons. But then it'd be all joyful again when I'd hear it at the end of classes and the teacher would no longer be able to keep me on their lethal leash, locked up in their caging prisons.

That was my favourite thing to hear in situations like that. Even if it only gave me a few seconds of freedom to breathe again before my thoughts would get trampled over by useless Maths equations and History dates of events no one really gives a shit about anymore. Because sometimes it was all a little too much to take.

With one question out of the blue from my teacher and everything collapses. That's when everyone turns to look at my bleak face at the very back of the classroom and incinerate me with their laughing eyes and belittling thoughts.

Even if I knew the answer, the howling and constant insults growing in my head that say I'm not smart enough choke me until I can't breathe. And yet again I have to embarrassingly sprint out of the room before I end up throwing up in front of my least favourite people in the world.

As you can probably tell by now, I'm going through some shit. So is everyone else. It's just a matter how well someone can hide it. And trust me, I can hide it pretty well.

But it's just a bit harder on some days than others.

Bursting through the fire exit, the crisp air hits my lungs and I can feel the oxygen purifying my brain again. Panting heavily from running, my head whips around in search of escape and lands towards the back gate of the school.

I find myself contemplating whether to just ditch everyone in this hellish school and run off. I didn't care where to, I just wanted to run and run until my legs would give out and I'd be in a place where no one knows my name.

As many devils I have locked up in my head, there's always that one angel that slaps me across the face and tells me to sort my shit out. Calming my breathing, I rip my desperate gaze from the tempting gate and force myself to stare down at my torn converse. "Not today, Willow, not today."

Blowing out a breath, I turn on my heel and walk away from my one solution to getting out of here. It would only cause hell for my Aunt again.

Thankfully, it's lunchtime. But I don't head back in. The last thing I want is have to face everyone in the cafeteria. It's not like I wanted the schools shit rabbit food anyway.

Instead I find the only safe place in this school. It's the brick wall at the back of the shady part of the building, where no one ever visited unless they wanted to have sex or have a smoke. Which is exactly why I'm going....only for the smoking bit though.

The silver chains and jewellery choking my neck and wrists create a rustle of noise as I attempt to sit up on the wall. With my palms giving me support, I level myself up onto the newly painted bricks, missing it's old broken and faded bits. Why is everything so easy to repair but me?

I shuffle around, letting one leg dangle while resting my other foot on the surface. The cigarettes slide out of the pocket of my shorts and without checking whether anyone's looking, I light one up and slide it between my lips. "Fucking teenagers. Stupid fucking teenagers."

My curses come to a halt as I blow out the smoke, a temporary calming sensation pulling me into its decieving arms while all it really does is rot my organs. The sun is way too bright, slicing through the transparent clouds and piercing its rays into my helpless pupil.

"How did I know I'd find you here?" A sweet voice speaks, causing me to whip my head around. I do it too fast, a stinging ache hitting the muscles of my neck.

With the sun blinding my vision, I can barely see the person, nothing but a short pastel white dress visible. My eyes stop squinting as she draws nearer, she overtakes the bright lamp behind her and her figure glows before me.

"You don't go to this school." I state, not really caring how rude I sound.

She shrugs, coming closer towards me as she speaks. "I don't. My parents were checking it out today to see if I can start here next year."

My heart does an odd flip at that, the news strangely making me feel a certain way. She's standing right in front of me now, staring up with her wide eyes. I find myself admiring the two loose strands blowing in the faint wind across her dainty face. "I don't think I'll be coming here though."

And then my heart does another thing but it doesn't feel anywhere as good as it did the first time. I don't say anything, blatantly staring down at her.

"My parents are looking for the best private school."

Oh, so she's a rich bitch. I guess it makes sense then. Why she always looked so effortlessly royal.

Her mouth widens as she smiles and the corner of my lips twitch, wanting to smile back. "I know what you're thinking."

I wouldn't be surprised if she actually did. This girl is still a stranger to me and yet I feel like she's the only person in the world who knows me.

My cigarette burns itself in my idle hand while I continue to stay quiet and watch her. She takes a step closer, holding out her hand. "Help me up?"

My frown only deepens and I hesitate a little before wrapping my hand around hers and pulling her up. It's hella easy as she barely weighs anything, she practically floats into her seat next to me. As she moves into a comfortable position, she stares down at our hands still entwined. I look down too, immediately drawing my hand away before she can feel the nervous sweat seeping through my pores.

I avert my eyes from hers and put out my cigarette, not caring about where it lands as I throw it over my shoulder. She watches me do so with a small sullen look and I suddenly feel bad for what I just did.

"You never asked me about my name." She tells me. I can feel her eyes traveling all over me.

Swallowing, I reply. "Didn't really cross my mind."

How easily that lie slipped out of my mouth when really it's all I've been thinking about since the day I met her.

She looks around, searching for something that makes me think she's regretted approaching me in the first place.

"I'll give you a hint." Out of the corner of my eye, I notice her lifting her arm and I turn to see why. She points towards the bushes and my gaze follows the same direction until they land on clusters of roses at a distance.

"Rose." I say simply.

She turns towards me and tilts her head "Hmm, try it with an accent at the end?"

My eyebrows furrow and I try again "Rosé?"

"Correct." She praises, beaming.

This time I can't help it, the corners of my mouth give in and my lips form a little smile as I stare at her. It's only for a few seconds before I press my lips and look down. "It's a pretty name."

Her grin widens. "That's so sweet of you."

The word 'sweet' had never sounded so satisfying rolling off her tongue and I swear I just wanted to spend the rest of the day listening to her talk.

"You're from Australia." I start to speak again, growing more and more fearless.

She nods. "Auckland."

Still looking down, I mumble. "People are going to really take the piss out of your accent here."

At that she sighs and I can tell it's something she's probably already discovered. "I know."

A quiet silence hovers between us and I'm starting to wish I hadn't brought her accent up. All I wanted to was compliment it but instead I end up being just like every other British idiot in this cruel school.

My hands start to sweat and I'm pretty sure it's not because of the sweltering sun beating down on me. I've always been the worst at making conversation and today was only proving it. Probably one of the main reasons I barely had any friends.

It doesn't matter how funny I can be, how kind I can be or how interesting of a person I can be. All of those traits don't mean anything when you have too many brick walls of trust issues and anxiety built up to stop yourself from just being you in front of others.

"You have a lot of tattoos for your age."

I scoff. "How do you know my age?"

Her shoulders give another mini shrug. "I just know you're not old enough to have that many tattoos."

Wiping my hands on my shorts, Rosé glances down and notices. The next thing I know is that I can feel her fingertips grazing over the skin of my hands.

My body tenses at her touch, the smooth skin of her fingertips gracefully trailing up my hands, past my wrist and over my bare arms. I can't understand what she's trying to do at first but when I look down and see her fingers stopping at certain places along my skin I realize she's tracing all my tattoos.

She suddenly leans in close to me, inspecting a certain tattoo closer. My breathe halts and my nose detects the scent of her hair as it inches closer to me. Funnily enough, it's not the smell of roses. Instead I can smell creamy butter and cool coconuts, the mixture appearing oddly alluring as it tingles my nostrils.

"This one's my favourite." She whispers, straightening herself again except she doesn't move completely back. I force my eyes downwards instead of focusing how close she is and try my best to focus on what she's pointing at.

It's the tattoo that spells out 'teardrops' in an old fashioned font. There's a small drawing of a single water droplet that represents the tears.

The tears that never come. The tears I shoved to the back of my mind so much growing up that they can no longer flow. They'll just stay forever locked up as they flood my brain with the immense pain that I can't let out.

Unlike everyone else, she doesn't ask what it means or why I got it. She just admires it with a small smile. When we both look up at the same time, our faces are a lot closer than I thought. My lips part as I suck in a breath and I blink, unable to comprehend how close she is.

Her soft stare is what races heart unbelievably fast, those gentle eyes that cause all the tattoos on my body to melt right off my skin. My eyes drop to her lips and I regret it as soon as I do.

It's crazy how clear yet how jumbled my thoughts become until they all suddenly vanish and it feels like I'm not even thinking at all anymore. All it took was just one look of those creamy dark eyes to shut up all the terrifying voices in my head.

Smiling, she bites her lip as her hand travels to my thigh and her fingers clasp around the bare flesh, giving it a quick squeeze. A small gasp leaves my mouth and before I can recover, she plants the quickest kiss on my cheek and hops off the wall. She lands with a bounce, her long legs made out of some kind of spring.

Watching me with the biggest smile on her face, she lets out a joyful laugh that sends my heart flying out of it's chest. Then without another word, she turns around as her dress twirls and runs away with a skip in her steps.

Frozen in my place, my hand slowly raises itself to my cheek and I cup the part where her lips had touched it, staring at her disappearing form in disbelief.

I remember feeling something in my heart that day. Especially when I was walking home from the end of school and my hand couldn't resist touching the side of my face here and there.

At first I just thought it was my heart doing a weird flip again or something but I was feeling something else. Something a lot stronger.

I felt the brick walls surrounding slowly starting to fall.