The Times You Hide

With pain in her sides and earphones tangled all over her body, Rosie Toke woke up on the floor.

The cold floor and backache she began to soothe with her frosty hands reminded her of the new year's resolution she broke in two days. "

I need to stop falling out of bed, it's already March" she grunted.

She began to pull apart the wires of music that she was convinced wanted to choke her to death.

"My music is out to get to me!"

"Death by music! How romantic!"

Rosie had recently embraced the truth that she was a drama queen last week when she and Millie had been out people watching.

As each stranger passed, Millie and Rosie gave them identities and gauged their creepiness with their questionable certified creep-o-meter.

They had seen a couple laugh their heads off while people watching in the cheesy movie which none of them could recall the name that they watched the night before.

"Look! He's bald! Probably evil!" Millie exclaimed.

She nudged her head over to the six foot shady looking middle-aged man who walked into Cafe Diem using his large black coat to awkwardly block the angry winds that rushed into the room when he opened the door.

"Shush you!" Rosie panicked.

She quickly used her still cold hands to cover and subdue Millie's excitement.

Millie's eyes dancing with misbehavior seemed to laugh at Rosie until she noticed that Rosie's hands were on her face.

"Cold, it's cold, EW"

Millie slapped Rosie's hands away.

She eyed Rosie, "When last did you..?" She began to question in fear.

"Not recently, and you know you deserve it" Rosie smirked.

Millie began to make fake barf noises and wipe her mouth with the clean napkins on the table.

When she came up for air after removing the nastiness that was Rosie's cold and unwashed hands, she noticed her biting her lower lip and nervously glancing at the bald man who had seated a couple tables away from their table.

"You know, you need to stop your irrational fear of bald men"

Millie started to scold Rosie who finally looked away from the nearby baldy.

"I am not scared of bald men, just scared of bald men that are strangers."

Rosie corrected, which only made Millie roll her eyes in frustration.

"Ah of course, how can I forget your whole spiel of how the less hair you have, the eviler you are and other nonsense from the Rosie Records"

Millie began to pick up the napkins she had used to wipe off Rosie's dirty hands from her face.

"Just think about it!"

" A hair strand for every sin! "

"It's why you are losing your hair, Millie, what evil have you been up to these days?"

Rosie questioned Millie and began to laugh at her glare.

"Oh Millie Vang, my bestest friend since basically forever and ever, why does thou glare at me?"

"Is it right to gaze upon your one true BFF with spite? "

"When shalt thou gaze at me with nothing but love shining from thou's eyes Miss Vang?"

Rosie placed her dirty hands on her own face in mock frailty and drama.

"Oh, I don't know, maybe when you start to wash your hands more often or something?" Millie smirked.

Rosie realizing that she had been rubbing the dirt on her hands all over her face, let out a little scream that made other customers at the cafe turn in surprise and glare at her.

Millie laughing at the embarrassed Rosie who hung her head in shame continued to tease her.

"At this point, you cannot deny that you are such a drama queen Rosepuff,"

"Even I wasn't that bad when you placed your ew hands on my face."

"Look, Rosie, you even got strange baldy startled."

"I accept I am dramatic." Rosie sighed.

" I proudly claim the crown of drama but please make strange baldy go away" she pleaded in defeat.

"Is he?" Millie started to question.

Seeing Rosie's certain brown eyes, she began to pack up her bag.

Rosie picked up the dirty napkins and put them in the trash on their way out of the cafe.

Pleading for Millie's life-saving hand sanitizer, they left Cafe Diem and left the strange baldy confused as he immediately reached for the phone hiding in his ugly brown sock.

Brushing her teeth and still nursing her backache, Rosie sighed and looked at the cheesy sticky notes on her mirror.

She smirked at the "Be yourself, but not really" note that Millie had dramatically written in fancy cursive letters.

"Rosaline! Rosaline!" Nora her stepmom roared.

Choking on her toothpaste, Rosie began to frown and quickly clean up, gearing herself for the daily rant from Nora.

Cleaning up and packing her bags and emergency earphones, Rosie braced herself as she stepped out into the living room.

"Are you going over there again?"

"Don't be useless like your father! You have such a connection to a Vang and yet you let us live so uselessly, Stop being so stupid!" Nora began her rant.

Rosie had long become accustomed to Nora's ranting about Millie's friendship with her. She had even stopped refuting Nora and claiming that her relationship with Millie was an innocent, not one where she planned to use the Vang wealth for her own good.

Of course, Nora understood none of this.

To her, Rosie was wasting her good fortune of having a friend like Millie who was the granddaughter of a billionaire and a Vang.

It was not like Rosie did not care for money or did not see money.

She saw the class and wealth difference between her and Millie every morning she choked on her cheap toothpaste that tasted like wet bread and chalk.

She saw the difference every time she had to carefully untangle her earphones that had twisted around her body in sleep, making sure not to rip off a wire that had been slackening due to age and overuse.

Rosie was well aware of her situation but she chose to ignore that and not treat Millie as a rope to climb out of her situation like how Nora would drone on every day.

Rosie had seen her father be destroyed by greed and crazy ambition so all she wanted to do was to be happy.

So what if her most of her clothes had holes in them, she would just hide with a large graying jean jacket.

So what if most of the things at her house was old and about to give up?

She would use it until it died thrice before finally starting a debate whether to buy a new one or if she and her stepmother really needed a new table to eat dinner.

Sitting on the floor was already a default position for Rosie. She would be that way until Nora started to complain about it and Rosie would finally look for a way to get a new table.

Not in the mood to hear Nora's daily rant as usual, Rosie just repeated okay until she could finally slip out the apartment and head somewhere far away.

The furthest place Rosie knew as a sixteen-year-old was the massive house across the street- The Vang Mansion.

Entering through the secret back passage that Millie had been generous to share to Rosie, she greeted the regular guards, Bryon and Kamron. They gave her a thumbs up that signaled to her that Millie was home and none of her annoying family was also home.

Instead of going up to Millie's room, she took the familiar detour to a garden spot at the back.

Lying under the shade with a beautiful view of pretty flowers and an unending sky was Rosie's comfy place.

"ROSIE!" Startled, Rosie almost jumped off her blanket.

"AH STOP DOING THAT!" Rosie yelled and kept her right hand on her heart to steady herself.

"Forever a scaredy cat I see, why are you hiding out? No one is home" Millie picked up the old book that Rosie was reading.

"The Llamas of Shangrillama?"

"Who in the world reads a book about llamas?" Millie tossed Rosie's book away.

"Respect the llamas will you?"

Rosie picked up her precious children's book and carefully dusted it while glaring at Millie.

Placing her left hand on her head and sighing, Millie mocked Rosie.

"Oh, if only you treated your one true best friend with half as much love as you give to llamas!"

"Rosepuff does not even care as I lay my expensive Vecci dress on the floor to lie next to her!"

"I am such a poor thing!"

Falling with as much drama as she could, Millie pouted at Rosie.

"No need to mock me!" Rosie rose to kneel before Millie.

"I am the next top drama queen!"

"How dare I let my lady join me on this crass but comfy blanket?"

"My best friend is too good for the ground!" Before Millie could react to the evil glint in Rosie's eyes, Rosie started pushing her off the blanket.

"You jerk! I thought you said I was too good for the ground!"

Barely defending herself from Rosie's shoving, Millie tried to defend herself.

"From dust we come and to dust we return!" Rosie started chanting while pushing Millie off the blanket.

"Fine I am dust, I am dust, I give up!" Millie sighed and rolled off the blanket by herself.

Laughing at her, Rosie also rolled to the ground by somersaulting the best she could off the comfy blanket.

"10/10!"

"Never have I seen such a gymnast!" Rosie bowed as Millie clapped for her pathetic moves.

When the two friends calmed down from laughing at themselves, they sat back on the blanket and stared up at the sky.

"What are you hiding from today?" Millie asked.

"The usual. Nora you see, says I should use you as a branch to climb up the world."

"To her, I am useless, as all I do not want anything or have any ambition" Rosie answered while staring into Millie's pained eyes.

"Might as well use me, you wouldn't be the first." Millie stood up from the blanket.

"And get nicer clothes too will you? I've been aching to do a cheesy shopping spree and makeover for many years Rosepuff" Millie whined and dusted off her dress.

Rosie rolled her eyes at Millie and did another eye roll as Millie whipped out her huge phone and started looking for good lighting.

Taking her phone, Rosie started to direct Millie in her posing and taking several camera shots of her.

"Though I do not really get your blogging thing, and I am Miss-No-Ambition, I still do not understand how blogging can help you with your goal of a "perfect" marriage," Rosie questioned Millie while bending one knee and taking pictures like a professional photographer.

"I know that there is no perfect marriage rosepuff, I just want something that is not my parents." Millie sat on the grass and posed for Rosie.

"I am honestly still trying to understand it being cool that your goal is marriage."

"I want to say find yourself, have fun, don't make your goal be a man because they suck, but then again, at least you have an ambition and I don't." Rosie stopped taking pictures for a while and looked around their surroundings.

Pointing to a better spot, she led Millie and kept on taking pictures.

"We all have different goals, Rosepuff,"

"One day you'll find yours, remember we are learning that there is nothing wrong with wanting to find a happy marriage as a major goal" Millie corrected Rosie and kept on posing.

"Do you think we have enough pictures? I have a great idea for us to fill for my lifelog!" Taking her phone back, Millie started scrolling through all the captured images.

"Millie, can the weird things we do for your lifelog be my ambition pretty please?" Rosie pouted at her.

"Nope, my lifelog, MY ambition, make your own you lazy Rosepuff" Selecting a picture, Millie quickly uploaded it on Instagram and tagged the brands she was wearing.

"If you made one, you can add a party to it! We are going partying Rosepuff!" Millie put her phone away and started to dance.

"You sure are lucky I just LOVE parties," Rosie said sarcastically.

Grabbing Rosie's hands, Millie offered, "let's go see who is attending and sort them into people we hate and people we kind of hate."

"Always my pleasure Ms. Mills," Rosie giggled and they both walked to her room to cause their usual chaos.