Author's Note

Look at this foreshadowing and symbols yo.

Jill Andrews' "Lost It All" is where I want to point this book to??

Thank you for reading loves, this is very confusing.

December 12th

THIS COULD HAVE BEEN PREVENTED. 

The words are as clear as the pronounced wrinkles framing Principal Picard's thinning pink lips. One look from the aging woman has everyone in their own respectable seats  staring down at their hands, fumbling with the fact that they had mutated into a selfish body of students who sought the camera more than their own presumed-dead classmate. 

Picard doesn't use the microphone like the other teachers, she simply stands there, cool and collected while allowing her eyes to glance over the deadly quiet sea of teenagers crammed into three sections of faded black bleachers. The ones in the back, sitting in the futherest corner, aren't even saying anything- which is unheard of. 

Rose Maverick turns to glance at them- because those kids in the back, the ones that don't actually belong anywhere else so they just all mutually began to stick to one another in effort to survive high school- are his best friends. They stare down at Picard, chewing on their nails nervously and scooting in tighter as if they were attempting to hide in one another's shadow. 

Skittish things, Rose's dear friends were. Just like him. 

Today, he sits next to Tansy, surrounded by her edgy friends who finally take the time to stop pretending like they don't care- because they actually do, Rose can tell by the way they were using the study of their cuticles as a distraction from the cold reality that is now- to give their full attention to their principal on the basketball court. 

"A student is missing," Picard allows her voice to echo through out the gymnasium, lifting up one thick eyebrow to see if her words had forced any results out of her students. And it did.

They all leaned forward in their seats, pocketing their smartphones in exchange for giving their principal their undivided attention.  

Tansy's own face is resting in his shoulder, nosing at his throat as she wraps a hand around his back and brings him closer. The only time Tansy can ever stand Rose is when she actually needs him, but he doesn't say that because it's apparently insensitive to say the truth. 

"Ethan Malloup, a seventeen year-old boy who has been a student of this school for his entire academic life, and you," she says it like they all committed the heinous crime of pretending to know him for a chance to get on some news station that covered county-wide. "You discredit his entire existence, it seems, just to grab a thirty-second time slot on some news station?!"

The students who obviously committed these transgressions immediately snap their heads down, eyes fixated on their hands which are placed in their laps and their shoulders turn slack- as if they are attempting to appear smaller. As if trying to make themselves look smaller will erase any of the damage done or ease the penalty. 

"Did I not make myself clear last week," she continues, folding her hands behind her back as she walks across the court, clean converse hardly making a noise on the polished wooden floor. Picard may seem strict in this very moment, but she actually wore bell-bottom jeans and crocheted tops like it could still be the sixties.  

The entire gym nods and mutters of 'yes ma'am' echo like a scratched record. The fist Tansy has made in Rose's sweater pulls tighter at the sudden wave of noise- like it will come and force her to go with it, as if she hadn't anchored her limbs around her brother's, maybe her body would be drifting up with those voices and carried out of the cracked windows in the building's walls.

"If I catch another student who speaks to any news station blathering lies," Picard pauses. Maybe it's for theatrical effect- or maybe she really is just this pissed. "You will be punished as far as I am legally enabled to do so." 

Some gasp. It's the young ones who do. The freshman who are finishing their first semester at the high school and still learning the ropes, and some stray sophomores, who still aren't completely in step with how things are done around here.

Most stay silent, accepting this. 

Because it's not appropriate to tell any professional journalist the stories that are passed around lunch tables from boredom. Half of them are created by Rose himself because he wanted to see the way Tansy's bland friends would hang off of his every word, take it, and then revise it to fit their own needs, until it became strangled into nothing close to the original and traveled around school until it finally reached him again as this new and strange thing. 

"Am I understood?" She asks, even though anyone would know the answer just by glancing up at the wide-eyed teenagers with their gaping mouths and painfully straight backs. 

They all nod, aside from Tansy and Rose, who sit there and stare at Picard. She ignores their eyes. Most do now. No ones likes to stare grief in the eye, not when it is so obvious in the grey irises of Tansy. And Rose's amber stare had always been too intense, too curious, too innocent but too deviant all at the same time. 

"You have two minutes to get to class," Picard finally unfolds her hands from behind her back and brings them to her face as if she's attempting to wipe away all of the stress of the week by rubbing her palms to her cheeks. "Dismissed." 

Around them, the students raise up like dandelions in the wind, spinning off into one general direction until they eventually begin to stream out of the doors on each wall. 

Rose catches Jeanne's worried glance, his best friend's hand thrown up in a wave that resembles more of a surrender in a garden of fleeing students being pushed by the wind of Picard's demands than a friendly flick of her hand. 

He lifts up his finger; he wants to go to her. But Tansy. 

Tansy. His sister. His family. Blood. 

But he still wanted to escape from this heavy hold she trapped him in; Rose found that he yearned for the soft grasp of his best friend, who would be happy to be a support system. If Rose was in the same situation- which, in a way he is, but if he was in Tansy's position- withering and rotting with grief from the unknown whereabouts of their friend Ethan Malloup, he does not actually know if he could count on Tansy. 

If he could actually lose himself so comfortably in a virtual stranger. Whose only real bond they shared was found in something as petty as blood. 

Rose knew Tansy felt some sort of guilt. Guilt in shutting him up. Guilt in the way that she pushed him out of everything and took it all for herself. Guilt derived from how she sometimes fell silent when he heard her friends whisper about him. 

But that had been conveniently forgotten by the presence of grief. Rose isn't supposed to say that either. He's expected to keep quiet as people only use him for nothing more for a one-way support system, sort out everyone else's problems for nothing in return, make sure the people around him are emotionally stable while he is literally trying his best just to keep himself together.

Rose takes the first move to stand, waiting for his older sister to let up on her inextricable grasp. She resembles a child in the way she tries to keep her hands wrapped around him,  attempting to keep him on the bleachers until they are surrounded by nothing but the lonely sound of their breathing.

But Rose doesn't like to be left alone, especially in a town like this, so he grunts, making it painfully obvious Tansy could have a tantrum elsewhere, in the halls of the school, in the front seat of their truck, in the cafeteria where her friends freeze up in her sudden show of emotions, but not here where, aside from each other, loneliness is their only companion.

She blinks up at Rose, and for a moment he sees the blatant confusion crossing her grey eyes- because, what? Her brother isn't falling into line, silently agreeing because for all the words he has trapped in that tangled mind of his, he can not ever express exactly what he means to say.

"I'm going to be late for English III," he tells her, like he needs an excuse.

She nods, not even realizing he had been exempt from English III because of his PSAT scores last year. He pretends that doesn't hurt, because that's what he is suppose to do. Keep it all in, shove down all of this shit into the farthest pit of his body, and pretend it doesn't feel like all of this anger and sadness and hopelessness isn't beginning to overflow in his landfill of crushed-down emotions.

Tansy stands up on wobbly feet. It's dramatic, even for her. Rose witnessed her crawl gracefully through a window on a Saturday night reeking of cheap alcohol and sweat once.

They don't even know if he's dead yet. They don't even know if Ethan is any closer to death than he was to life two weeks ago. Presumed is very ambiguous. Presumed is everything from hiding out with a distant friend for a few days or being buried alive underneath a block of cement.

But they know he is missing.

That is enough to send Tansy over the edge, whatever the edge is for her.

Rose imagines she had fallen ass over tea kettle when their mother had arrived home, tired and tight-lipped, staring at her two children and calling for the television to be turned off. Because Rose would never actually pay attention if it still flickered in the background and Tansy would use it as a distraction from her mother's words.

It was probably a wake-up call when their mother mirrored back the police report filed for Ethan's disappearance by his parents to her children.

 People are feeble. Weak. Frigid. Dangerously finite. Tansy had pushed that down. He knew it because he watched her sometimes, in the hallways, picking apart the people around her with the venom of her tongue.

Sometimes he wonders what made his Bitter Button so bitter.

"C'mon, Tansy," even if he doesn't want to admit it, his words come off kind. Like they always do. Something people have always taken for granted.

She places all of her weight onto him, or it feels like it. Seems like Tansy is completely ready to shovel all of her shit right in front of Rose's feet- keep him from moving forward until he begins to show Tansy just how unstable a person can be.

And then she'll move out of the way, disappear out of his life like she had never been there. Aside from the ten minute rides to school and the silent dinners shared and the bickering siblings do, nothing but miles and miles of distance would separate them at the first sign of Rose ever needing anything from Tansy.

Grey eyes meet his own amber, a grateful smile that doesn't really mean anything to him spreads across her face, but he still catches her by the back to rub soothing circles identical to the way their mother would when they were sick with sadness.

*

"I don't like her much," Rose is hardly seven years old. His dad is dead. His mother moved them into a big, cold house that feels empty. She's been replaced by some teenager, Daniel Malloup- he babysits almost every weekday and a couple of weekends each month.

Rose is used to the suburbs; he misses his old babysitter, too. Aashi had been kinder than Daniel, even when she was at her worst. And she would sing him to sleep with lullabies in words he didn't understand but appreciated anyway. She would kiss his forehead and wipe away the tears that he tried to keep in.

The only good thing about Daniel had been that he tugs his younger brother along with him.

Ethan sits beside him, bare feet tucked up underneath his butt as he presses his fingers delicately around Rose's scrapped knees. They should be both be weary that they're sitting beside Chasseur Creek; it's hardly summer, but it's still deep enough for a kid to drown in.

His brown eyes glance up to stare at Ethan. He looks wild. Ethan keeps his dark hair long even though his momma doesn't like it that way. He claims he never heard of a brush and he takes pride in escaping his parents' grasp with his hair pointing every single way.

"Tansy?" Ethan asks before he leans closer to the wound and blows cool air on Rose's knee. It should hurt but it only send a cool thrum into his blood vessels, making him straighten up his back and clutch his dirty hands instinctively to the other boy's arm.

"Yeah," he sniffles, big umber eyes becoming the color of runny honey, shiny from unshed tears.  His shirt is damp, from where his arm had landed in the creek and his knee caught him. "She never smiles much."

Ethan casts a long look at the other side of the creek, where Daniel scooped up Tansy above his head and walked in whatever direction she pointed to, leaning down and plucking any flower she requested, even if it was just a lawn daisy that disguised itself as a flower instead of a weed.

Daniel liked Rose, but he absolutely doted on his older sister.

At the peak of nine, she was old enough to understand how truly gone their father was. She used that to build up sadness, and sadness to a child usually morphed into ugly anger. Daniel worried about her. He spoke with her in a quiet voice, dark eyes wide with understanding, desperate to save a grief-ridden little girl from growing up bitter with the grace of God.

"She just feels guilty about it, smiling," Ethan explained, moving his gaze away from the two to stare back at Rose. He had shed his shirt as soon as they had all piled into Daniel's car to trek to the creek, no AC, apparently. Ethan was always a dark tan, regardless that Rose had first met him in the middle of winter, but now he has a farmer's tan. Dark skin meets even darker skin dyed from the harsh sun.  

"Guilty? Why would she be guilty about being happy?" Rose's thick eyebrows come down in a comical way, at least it would have been if it had not been completely fueled by unfiltered curiosity. The genuine want to know. More than just the wide-eyed 'why?' that was commonly served by children who simply wanted to hear themselves talk.

"'Cause," Ethan shrugs- because he is only eight after all. "I just know my momma didn't smile for a long while after my gigi died, and when she did, she would just cry all the next day. Like she was doin' somethin' bad."

"Like saying a cuss word?" Rose thinks aloud, pursing his lips as he says as if it could help him understand better.

"Yeah, like that," Ethan grins, and his is real. One Rose hadn't seen in a very long time. The type he only sees on Ethan. Free and happy and unrestrained. Some of his teeth are missing, his lips are chapped, and his breath smells like the cheese puffs they ate for lunch- but it still the picture of candid happiness.

Rose thinks of that, keeps the thought tucked into his mind long after the creek where Daniel plucked weeds for Tansy disappeared from the merciless hot weather and eventually filled up and froze over once again.

*

Tansy Maverick sits in the front row, seat nearest to Mrs. Hadaway. She has nothing out other than her smartphone, it buzzes to life every so often in group messages she never replies to or notifications from apps she ignores now.

Her ankles are crossed, but her fingers tap impatiently on the hard shell of the desktop, staring aimlessly at the whiteboard in front of her as if the formulas Hadaway tried to explain to the dumbstruck class actually made a lick of sense.

For the first time in a very long time, her nails are chipped and long past a much needed refill, dark polish cracks at the end of her long acrylic and she doesn't care. Tansy is still wearing black, but not the perfect style she had carefully formulated to help her image along in Argent Grove.

She wears sweatpants that smell like Rose- so they probably are- with a sweatshirt rolled up to her elbows, grayed at the end; her hair is haphazardly pulled up into a knot. Even if she choked on a cloud of dry shampoo, it would hardly help the grease-slicked brunette hair she abandoned.

Hadaway doesn't ask for an answer from Tansy like she always does, because half the time she's the only one that even knows what's going on, even if she hardly pays attention. Her beady eyes slip over her and onto the next braindead student.

She wonders if this is what Rose feels like; knowing absolutely everything in the class and never given the chance to answer, to prove that one could keep up with the course. If she turned around right now, Tansy would find her brother in the back of the room, biting on his pencil every second he wasn't doodling or jotting down notes.

Jeanne is probably talking to him, telling him some sly joke that makes him snort and throw his head back until the nape of his neck touches the metal of the seat and his throat turns raw from trying to keep in an obnoxious laugh.

Hadaway doesn't even try to separate the two anymore, knowing that if she even attempted it, they would simply scream across the room to talk to one another.

Today, he's wearing a sweater and khakis, unchanged from his usual appearance aside from an absent grin. He's sad that Ethan is gone. But not as much as Tansy.

Ethan, Tansy thinks, Ethan had been everything.

And at the same time, Ethan had been nothing more than the kid she should've spent more time with. Should've sat in Rose's room with him, listened to the both of them talk because she knew their conversations went miles deep. Should've answered his texts more often and kept him on the phone longer. Should've taken him up on his open invitations to dinner at his parents' and evening riding aimlessly in his truck.

But he looked so much like him.

Ethan's eyes were a paradox- the darkest shade of amber mimicking the same color of uninhibited love and protection for all of his friends and family, people like Tansy- but simultaneously, the very color of Tansy's darkest fears.

It was hard to look someone in the eyes when they were identical to the same person who tore her life apart.

When she managed to catch his gaze now, all she could find had been the fear- the adrenaline of trying to run and not being able to- the taste of the old carpet between the pews of the church and the same blurry eyes staring at her while strong hands pushed her cheek into the scratchy floor until her jaw ached and she coughed up blood.

The feeling of  Ethan's hands against hers, trying to reel her into his body for a comforting hug caused her to think of the way hands just like his had forced her onto her knees and wouldn't stop pushing her down until snot and blood and sweat all tasted the same.

The cross that always hung around his neck looked too much like the one she had kneeled in front of, whispering her own prayers until a body had cloaked hers and she had prayed for everything to stop.

Tansy glances up again, only to stop herself from thinking of everything she never wanted to acknowledge, and finds herself turning to check on her brother.

He's staring aimlessly in front of him, tapping his pencil and impatiently jolting his leg up and down until his desk rumbles. Jeanne hardly notices it, long use to his inability to stop himself from moving without thought.

Tansy doesn't stare long enough to catch his eyes, they are caught in the fast movements of his pencil against a loose-leaf notebook paper anyway, sketching something he will never have the patience to finish.

Now, staring into the back of a room she only ever sees the front of, she realizes how isolated her little Rose is. Jeanne may be sticking to side like a loyal thorn, but the students around him point themselves away like a holy light is being emitted from the opposite side of her brother.

He seems fine with the obvious distance between him and the rest of the students- at first, but he has his brows screwed up tight and his teeth digging into his bottom lip. Nervously, his amber eyes shift from his paper he's seems to be desperately interested in, to the clock on the wall, and down to the students who curl away from him.

In her studying, Tansy realizes the boy has darker bags than usual underneath his tired eyes, like the insomnia she had believed he had grown out of had suddenly came back in full throttle.

Tansy swallows, her gaze moving up once more, until she settles back to her own hands that sit folded neatly in her lap.

Her own brother looked like a stranger.

Author's Note

It was boring, I know. I just want to set the tone and I'm trying to get into these two characters' mindset because they're so freaking different, like the polar opposite.

(It's confusing, I know!)

I'm obsessed with writing about siblings. Let the world know it.

Tell me what you thought, and I appreciate every single read, vote, and comment!