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-&-

Chapter 5

       The next day I woke up with a small groan, and an excited Tate pounding on my door. "Come on Rosie. You need to wake up or you'll be late school!" His muffled voice shouted from the hallway as I let out a heavy sigh. I really did not want to do anything today, especially after that amazing afternoon I had yesterday. But I reluctantly threw my covers back and rolled out of bed anyway.

       "Why aren't you in classes?" I grumbled with a tired yawn as I went to open the door. He was leaning casually against the frame, his dark eyes flashing as they took in my Eeyore pajamas. Luce usually woke me up whenever I slept pass my alarm, but she had to leave for college an hour earlier this whole week.

       Tate chuckled.

       "I'm testing today, so I don't have to be there until ten."

       I scowled at him as he smirked and pushed his way big way into my room. "I hate you and your stupid college life." I grumbled as I stomped over to my dresser and yanked a random pair of clothes out.

       "Awe, don't be like that Rosie. You know you love me." Tate teased before his big hands whipped out of nowhere and began tickling my sides.

       I hunched over with a laugh and tried to swat at his tickling-fingers, but it didn't help much. "Tate! St- stop! Please!" I begged through my fit of giggles until he mercifully stopped and climbed back to his feet in one fluid motion.

       "Come on Winnie the Pooh." He teased and held his hand out to pull me to my feet. "I made breakfast for you."

       "Really?" I perked up instantly and threw my arms around his tan neck in sheer happiness. I wasn't one for eating as soon as I woke up, but if Tate made me breakfast then there was more than likely going to be bacon. And a sure-fire way into my heart, was cooking me bacon. Unless you're Rex Turner, and for some unknown reason I still adore you no matter how mean you are to me.

       Tate laughed and spun me around once before putting me back on my feet. "Yes, but get dressed first and hurry up. You're already running fifteen minutes late." I ignored the scolding tone in his voice and pushed him out of my room.

       "I'll be down in a sec, I promise!"

       It only took me ten minutes to get ready, and another five to eat- by the time I was ready to leave Tate was looking down at me from the kitchen entrance like I was the Tasmanian Devil. "I'm ready!" I called from the front door as he stood in the entrance of the kitchen with a raised eyebrow.

       "Are you driving me to school? I really don't wanna' walk." He would do pretty much whatever I asked him, especially when I pulled the whole 'puppy-dog' look on him. I stuck my bottom lip out in a pout and widened my eyes as he glared over at me.

       He didn't even last five seconds before he caved like the big baby he was, and let out a heavy sigh. "Okay fine, you manipulative little girl. But only 'cause you're too cute to say no to." He grumbled, but pressed a firm kiss to my forehead before grabbing his car keys off the foyer table.

       I gave him the toothiest smile I could muster and watched as he paused, his warm chocolate eyes blinking down at me for what felt like forever before he slowly shook his head. "You're going to be the death of me, baby doll." He muttered to himself before turning on his heel and dragged heavy feet out of the house. I tried to hide my victorious giggle as I skipped after him.

       I guess I must have woke up on the right side of the bed that morning. I hadn't felt that happy in a long time, and it was nice for a change. But then we pulled into the school parking lot and my smile slowly fell from my face. Rex was leaning against his sleek black car with his friends standing around him. They were all laughing- or at least the Dimajios and Trey were. But the leader of the Big Four seemed- content. Which was the happiest I had ever seen him.

       I swallowed the instant lump in my throat as images from the day before flashed across the front of my mind. I had called Tate after lunch and he took me out of school for the rest of the day. My emotions had been in one big downward spiral that whole afternoon, and I was way too distracted to pay attention in any of my classes. Tate was irritated that I wouldn't tell him what had made me so upset, but he didn't press the matter either.

       "Are you okay?" He asked softly from the driver's seat as his warm hand reached up and squeezed my upper arm. The gentle action made me jump and I tore my gaze away from Rex and the boys as Tate's eyes drilled holes into the side of my head.

       "Y-yeah, sorry. I guess I'm just tired." I gave him a weak smile, but his dark eyes just turned into a glare.

       "You were fine this morning-"

       "I know. I guess I crashed sooner than I expected. I'll see you later, okay?" I didn't look at him as I hopped out of car and threw my bag over my shoulder. I didn't want to see the worried look in his eyes. As much as I loved the guy, he was like an over-protective mother hen. Half the time I felt like he would lock me in my room and never let me out if Luce would let him.

       It was suffocating.

       I knew he would be at the house after school. He always was. He pretty much lived with us, as a matter of fact, my father even gave him the guest bedroom. I found it weird at first, but I didn't complain. I mean, Tate was my best and really only friend, and he was living with us. It was like a dream. My dad seemed to love him too, or at least- like him enough to let him stay. He went on business trips a lot, and I think he just really appreciated having someone stay with Luce and I when he wasn't there.

       I hurried across the parking lot and into the school before any of the boys happened to look up and see me. Not that they would have wanted to talk to me anyways. Rex probably told them not to bother- that I wasn't their friend. I quickly forced my thoughts in a different direction as my chest tightened, and I dragged my heavy feet up the stairs. I didn't want to have another break down like yesterday.

       The hallways were packed with gloomy students, none of which were hurrying to their first period. I didn't blame them- I honestly didn't want to be here either. I wanted to go to a good college, sure, but I wasn't necessarily that great when it came to grades. They weren't bad, just not the straight A's most colleges would jump for.

       I usually didn't like crowds, but I clung to them as I shuffled towards my locker. I was terrified of seeing Jason again- of him jumping out of nowhere and pulling me into a dark, cold janitor's closet. None of the Big Four were around to save me this time, and I highly doubted Rex would tell them to if he happened to see it. I would be alone, with that... that- pervert and completely defenseless. I hugged my bag strap tighter to my chest and hurried down the hall.

       Thankfully I didn't see any sign of that flash of blonde hair as I grabbed my binders and shoved them in my backpack. I was sure I was going to have a lot of work to make up, since I left school so early yesterday- and I wasn't looking forward to the condescending teachers raising suspicious eyebrows at me. I sighed as I closed my locker and turned towards my first period Math class. Today was not going to be fun.

       I didn't run into any unwelcomed company for the first half of the day, even though first and second period went by very slowly. It was surprisingly painful trying to avoid the boys in the hallway during passing periods, especially since they seemed to always be there. I never really paid much attention to it before, but the Big Four was always loitering in the hallways between classes. Hallways that just so happened to be everywhere I needed to go. They weren't looking for me though, not that they would- and it was rather easy avoiding them.

       I was weak though, and when I finally entered third period my eyes instantly went to the brooding Rex. The beautiful dark-haired boy I couldn't help but adore was staring out the window with a rather blank expression on his face.

       Just the sight of him made my chest ache. I was pathetic- I really, really was. I barely even knew him, actually I didn't know him, and yet he got to me easier than a knife slicing through butter. He barely ever talks, especially to me, and the few times he has- has led to a very depressing night for me.

       I needed to get a grip.

       I didn't bother sitting next to him, there was no point. He made it perfectly clear where we stood, what I was to him- which was one-hundred percent, absolutely nothing. I grabbed the only desk surrounded by empty seats. No one really liked to sit here, it was the easiest spot to get caught with your cell phone- but I never took mine out during class so I had nothing to worry about.

       I had taken out my binder and pen, and was waiting patiently for the bell to ring so class could start- when the sound of a heavy body plopping down in the desk next to mine made me jump. I already had a sinking feel of who it was, that dark atmosphere that clung to him like super glue surrounded the air I was so desperately trying to suck in. I snapped my eyes to the cool wooden top of my desk and stared at my binder as my emotions went haywire.

       What was he doing here?

       The room went deadly silent, and sixteen pairs of eyes turned to us as Rex slouched lazily in the desk next to mine- his hard, chestnut eyes stared at the blackboard like we weren't receiving everyone's undivided attention. I tried to ignore them, no matter how hard it was.

       He didn't acknowledge me, but I'm kind of glad he didn't. I wasn't in the mood to have a mental breakdown so early in the day. But I still had no idea why he would come sit beside me. I wasn't going to ask him though, and I knew for a fact he wasn't going to tell me.

       When the bell finally rang and the teacher walked in, I couldn't have been happier. That small distraction was enough to tear my mind off the awkward tension thrumming between us. The class dragged on slowly, but that was probably just because I kept fidgeting uncomfortably in my seat.

       I was waiting for him to do something, to say something. But he never did. Every time I looked over at him he was casually doing his work or staring at the blackboard. He didn't look at me once, and I didn't know whether to be happy about that or not.

       A part of me wished he would say something, anything- if only to dilute the tension between us. When the bell finally rang, he was out of his seat and the classroom faster than yesterday. The action made me sigh. If he hated me that much why did he even bother sitting next to me?

       Fourth period went by quickly, but that was probably just because I was dreading lunch. I didn't necessarily have friends and I usually sat by myself- but now that Trey had been making me sit with him I had something to look forward to. I didn't now. I didn't bother walking to the lunch line when I entered the cafeteria, and instead went to one of the abandoned tables in the back of the large room.

       I didn't know if Trey would be looking for me, and if he was the lunch line was the first place he would go to. Rex didn't want me near him- near them, and no matter how badly I wanted to be their friend, I wasn't going to put them in an awkward situation.

       I looked around the giant room cautiously until my eyes landed on their table. They were all sitting there, smiling and laughing without a care in the world- Well, all of them except Rex. He never laughs, but the smiles on the other boy's faces put a small one on my own. Even though their eyes stay locked on each other, not looking for me, their happiness made me happy.

       I wasn't quite sure why exactly. We've only technically known each other for three days, but I was already focusing my attitude around them. I let out a heavy sigh. Okay, I get attached way too easily. I let my gaze fall on each one of them until I forced my eyes to look at Rex- but his dark chestnut orbs were already staring at me. I blushed like a tomato and instantly dropped my gaze to the math homework in front of me.

       I didn't want him to think I was staring at them for their attention. If he didn't want me talking to them, then I wouldn't. He should at least have faith in that. I grabbed my pencil and mentally prepared my mind for the torture that is math. For a solid ten minutes I was able to effectively forget about the Big Four, and their beautiful, beautiful meany-head member Rex.

       And then everything hit the fan.

       My body froze when the chair beside mine pulled back with a loud screech. "Why aren't you eating?" My heart jumped in my chest as his low voice flitted through the air- a voice so dark and alluring it caused the hairs on the back of my neck to stand. My hand tightened around the small wooden pencil.

       "I'm not hungry." I mumbled quietly, but didn't bother raising my eyes from my work. Hopefully, if I pretended to be too involved with my homework he wouldn't have a legit reason to yell at me.

       "Even if you ate breakfast you haven't eaten in four hours. I'm sure you're hungry."

       I shrugged my shoulders nonchalantly, but kept my eyes glues to my paper. "It was a big breakfast."

       Why would he even care? He hates me. He's just here to torment my heart even more. Did he only sit next to me in third period to drive me insane? Probably. Well congratulations Rex, it worked. You have my thoughts and feelings twisted into so many knots I don't know what's up and what's down.

       He scoffed before my papers were pushed out of my face and a hamburger that smelled like a rubber boot was shoved under my nose. "You need to eat."

       "So now you're trying to poison me?" I meant it as a joke, and a small smile tugged on the corner of my lips as I picked the rubber boot (burger) up with my thumb and forefinger. Trey's attitude towards the cafeteria's food stuck with me, and now I will probably never eat from here again.

       "My God girl. Just eat the damn burger." His dark eyes flashed as his hard tone came out with a sharp snap. I flinched away from him. He was so- so confusing.

       I gripped the sorry excuse of food properly before taking a small bite. My stomach was growling, and if he wanted me out of his hair so much that he would poison me- I wouldn't protest. At least I wouldn't have to deal with his anger anymore.

       I heard him sigh and watched as he ran a heavy hand through his hair out of the corner of my eye. "Look, Rose, I don't- want to hurt you, but it's the only way to get you to understand that we are from completely different worlds. If you become friends with Trey and those idiots, you're only going to get hurt. You're not like us. You could never be like us, okay?"

       The hardest thing I had yet to face was trying to hold back tears, and as his words cut through my heart in more ways than one, all I wanted to do was cry- and I hated it. I already knew I was completely different from Trey and them- from Rex, but having him throw in my face that I would never fit in with any of them caused a heavy pain to sit like a brick in my chest.

       "Okay..." I mumbled quietly around the burger that even tasted like rubber. It didn't help the situation at all.

       "Yeah? Alright good." He nodded like what he said wasn't the most painful thing I had heard in a quite a while, before he grabbed his bag and stood. He walked back to his table without a backwards glance- not that it would matter if he did or not.

       I sat there for a minute, one solid minute as I tried to choke down the lump clogging my throat- but that was all I could handle. I shuffled my things into my bag as slowly as I dared before throwing it over my shoulder and hurrying out of the lunchroom.

       Today was really not fun at all.

-&-

       "This is the second time in two days that I had to pick you up like this, Rose. You need to tell me what's wrong." Tate tried to sound like the scolding parent he apparently thought he was, but when I threw myself into his arms and let the tears fall- his voice softened and he squeezed me tightly against him.

       "Rosie-"

       "I-I just want to go home." I murmured into his jacket, and without a second thought he had slung my backpack over his shoulder and escorted me from the front office.

       "Is someone bullying you?" He asked softly the minute he turned the car on and I buckled my seat-belt. I shook my head and wrapped the jacket he had thrown across my shoulders tighter around me. "Then what's wrong?" His voice was a helpless groan as he pulled out of the school's parking lot with tight hands gripping the steering wheel.

       "Just boy problems." I mumbled and messed with the sleeves of his worn blue jean jacket as his eyes flashed over to me.

       "Boy problems?" I saw his hands tighten on the wheel until his knuckles turned white out of the corner of my eye, but I didn't bother commenting. He usually got weird like this whenever I started talking about boys. I was used to it.

       "You don't need to be messing around with boys, Rosalyn." I peeked up at him through my curtain of hair and watched the tense look on his tan face. He only called me by my real name when he was mad or frustrated- and by the looks of it, he was feeling both right now.

       "They were just my, um, friends- but they're not anymore, so don't worry." I shouldn't have cared this much, not really. I barely knew the Big Four, barely spent any time with them. I have no idea why I was feeling such an overwhelming attachment- one that was just ripped harshly from me.

       "Okay baby doll, don't worry about it. I'll take you home and get you all fixed up, alright?" I nodded and snuggled further into his worn-down leather seat that I loved, and let him mumble soothing words for the whole drive.

       I was half way through an intense movie session when the doorbell rang a few hours later, but I didn't race down the stairs to get it. I knew Tate wouldn't want me to- so instead I paused my Lord of the Rings movie and crept out of bed to sit at the top of the stairs and peek at whoever was waiting behind the door.

       "What do you want?" Tate's large figure was blocking my view of the outside, but with the way the words were forced so distasteful from Tate's mouth already gave me a vague idea of who was there.

       "I came to talk to Rose." Trey's voice was just as clipped and disgruntled as Tate's, and I had the sudden urge to figure out why they hated each other so much- but I didn't dare ask. Not around both of them at least.

       "Like hell that's going to happen." Tate spat and kept the door closed enough so Trey couldn't get through. "I'm gonna take a wild guess and say your probably part of the fucking reason why I've had to pick her up early from school two days in a row."

       I cringed at his words- at the way they made me sound. I didn't want him telling Trey I had run home crying like a baby. I didn't want him knowing how badly words hurt me. Trey sighed loudly before his deep voice reached my ears once again. "Look, I just need to talk to her okay? I'm not going to hurt her."

       "You already fucking have-"

       "Tate, it's okay." I shot up from my hidden crouch and called quietly from the top of the stairs before making climbing reluctantly down. He gave me a wary look with his dark eyes, but let Trey through the door reluctantly.

       "Princess." A small smile lit his face when he saw me, but it quickly faded as his bright green eyes scanned my face. "We need to talk- alone." His eyes turned hard once again as he glanced over at Tate. He just glared back and crossed his arms over his chest like my big, over-protective body guard. I smiled up at my best friend before nodding my head that it was okay. He gave me a worried look, but closed the front door anyway and turned to walk down the hall.

       "I'll be in the living room if you need me." I nodded at him and he shot me one last look before reluctantly leaving the foyer.

       "Princess, look about today-" Trey started softly, but I shot him a smile small and wrapped my arms tightly around my waist. I needed any form of comfort that I could get at that moment.

       "It's okay Trey. I understand." My voice sounded a lot stronger than how I was feeling, but I was afraid of speaking any louder than I had. It would feel too real to me. This- this conversation would only hurt me more.

       "No, you don't. Rex has a bad way about going about things, and when he realizes what he's done it's already too late to fix. I'm here to fix his dumb ass mistake- I need to fix it." He paused and took a breath, like he was readying himself for the hardball he was fixing to through at me. I dropped my eyes to the floor as his raised to mine.

       "It's true, that we come from different worlds, but Rex wasn't trying to be an ass when he told you that. Believe it or not, he wanted to help you." I could feel the tears burning at the back of my eyes as he talked, but I pushed them down and forced myself to listen. I hated crying- I truly, honestly did. And I hated even more that almost any hurtful thing made me want to bawl my eyes out and hide.

       "People like you- the small, fragile, and tiny ones- get hurt around people like us. We're not safe, and we don't necessarily always think things through." He paused and I felt those bright eyes scan over me as I stood nearly hunched completely into myself. I let out a shaky breath. This day just couldn't get any better.

       "Rex was trying to tell you to stay away from us so you won't get hurt. He didn't mean to make you so upset." His voice trailed off as that unnerving stare of his drilled holes in the top of my head. I couldn't bring myself to look at him.

       I-I didn't really know what to think. If Rex told him to come here and talk to me, that has to mean he actually cares enough to not want to hurt me. But on the other hand, Trey showing up instead of Rex is making me think that he didn't care at all and that Trey did. After all, he did say he only came to fix Rex's mistake. What if Rex hadn't told him to come at all?

       And Trey admitted that we're from different worlds- that I could get hurt around them. Is this his way of telling me he didn't want us to be friends either, that we couldn't? God, this was all so confusing- heartbreakingly, soul shaking-ly confusing.

       "Okay, I get it." I mumbled against the thick tension surrounding us, and glanced away before his bright eyes made water start to fill mine once again.

       "Do you really?" He asked suspiciously even though his voice was soft, like I was a glass china doll that could easily break. Heck, maybe I was.

       "Yeah." I forced my eyes back to his and gave him the best smile I could manage, which seemed to be good enough for him.

       "Alright, well I have to go. Bye Rose." His deep voice was soft as his hand reached for the knob to the front door. He didn't call me Princess, and that fact actually made my heart drop to my stomach painfully. It's funny really, the fact that the first friends I had made in years didn't even last a whole week. I wanted to laugh at how depressing the whole situation was.

       "Bye Trey." I mumbled softly after him as he walked out of the foyer and onto the porch. This was probably the last time we would ever talk to each other- these 'byes' were probably permanent. I closed the door quietly and locked the dead bolt as Tate walked slowly back towards me.

       "Rose-"

       "I-I just want to be alone right now." I didn't bother looking at him as I turned and headed up the stairs. Thankfully he didn't follow. I had to sort through all this chaos inside me- all the different emotions and thoughts crushing around my head.

       God, I didn't do well with stress.

-&-

Short, I know. But tell me what yall think!