I can't feel my senses
I just feel the cold
All colours seem to fade away
I can't reach my soul
(Within Temptation — Frozen)

                                                                         ***

Night. Today the sky is clear and even the stars shine brighter than always. It's her last night before the beginning of an adulthood. Her prom. For every teenager this day is the most important in life. 

But not for her.

Rose stands in front of the big mirror in her bedroom and looks at herself in reflection. Her deep brown eyes slowly travels down from hair, which she curled into a slight waves, to long purple dress with a small neckline, perfectly suits her fragile figure. Rose looks like a real princess, so says her mother, entered the bedroom of her beloved daughter.

Mother showering her with compliments, but Rose doesn't care how she looks. The corners of her small plump lips are lowered, her cheeks, which always were a light pink color, now have a pale shade. Her intelligent and always wistful eyes looks empty. Rose have only one thought in her head. She just wants this night to be over as fast as possible.

***

Rose standing in front of the entrance of school, but doesn't dare to go inside. She feels like her legs stuck to the ground and she can't move. Rose tries to calm a strange unpleasant feeling in her chest, and feel how fast her tortured heart beats. There is big deep ocean of different thoughts in her head. But this is not a calm water, it's a real storm, all-consuming and crushing. And she sinks in her own thoughts, in her ocean, she can't lift off the miseries and stop her own storm.

Rose let's out a deep breath and goes to the spacious school hall, trying not to fall in front of the whole school on uncomfortable high heels. Everyone around Rose laughs and smiles, trying to remember every moment of this unforgettable night. Because very soon they will have to part with friends and go into their own way of life.

And Rose also wants to be like them. She wants to laugh, she wants to be with her couple and best friends, she wants to be happy and wants this night to be unforgettable.

But can't?

***

The prom is held in the school gym, Rose enters it and goes to the table with food and drinks. She wants to stay here for an hour or two and go home. She push her chestnut hair behind the ear and looks around. The room is decorated in a typical way: a lot of balloons of different colors, greeting posters and serpentine. The light is muffled, so the gym is lit only by a few spotlights.

Rose feels how someone behind pats her on the shoulder. She instantly turns back and see smiling Nick. He embraces Rose and gives a glass of champagne to her hand.

"Congratulate you with graduation! We did it!" he has to scream in her ear because of the loud music.

"Yeah, I congratulate you too," responds Rose and tries to put a happy smile on her face. But even if she does it badly, Nick would not notice. He is too happy and exited to see that something is wrong with Rose today. They were friends at school and sat together at all joint lessons.

But Rose doesn't consider Nick as a friend, she thinks that friend it's someone very special. Someone who you can trust like yourself, someone who can accept the most terrible and sad truth about you, someone who doesn't change the subject of conversation, when you tell about your pain. It's someone who understands without a words when your heart is broken. It's someone who helps you to feel like at home in your own soul, someone who is happy when you're happy.

Rose doesn't know people like that, so she hasn't any friend, only acquaintances and Nick is one of them.

"Already know where you will study after school?" inquired Nick.

"Probably, in the Boston University," responds Rose and takes a little sip of champagne.

"Oh, it's far from here."

Suddenly, the thin Rose's hand twitches and some drink pours out of her glass on the floor.

She sees him, standing in the center of the room and talking to his best friend. Gregory. So recently her Gregory. How handsome he is in this tuxedo with a bow tie of the same color.

Rose is still standing with a half-empty glass of champagne and looks at him, it seems she even doesn't blink. Nick anxiously asks if everything is alright with her, but Rose doesn't say any word and make any move. She feels like her throat becomes dry, the air seemed to disappear, so she can't breath.

"Rose?" Nick asks on confusion. He comes closer to her, frowns and puts a hand on Rose's shoulder. But she is still doesn't notice him, the world around her seemed to stop.

The pain of fresh memories pierces her heart like a sharp knife and Rose understands that she can't stand here anymore. With shaking hands she gives a glass to perplexed Nick and hurry to go away from the room.

***

The long dark night
And my lonely soul
They're so similar
Don't you know?

The color of coal
Is the same as my heart
And you is the reason
You know, I'm not wrong

We fell apart
Like the stars in the sky
I think we're lost
In the whole universe

The remnants of pleasure
Still live in my heart
I hear how it beats
And silently weeps