And so we kissed

Fourteen

Rosemary sat in her room, flipping through the pages of her new book. She'd been sitting in that room for what felt like hours and she couldn't help but actually enjoy it — besides the whole pink wall thing — and all the other pink stuff — it was kind of nice.

And what surprised her was that her mother didn't call her once. Her phone had been ringing all that afternoon but it wasn't because of her mother, which was weird. She expected it but it never happened. Eventually, the thoughts made her stop her reading.

Just as she did so, her phone started ringing and she sighed before reaching over and answering it. She raised it up to her ears as she heard the sound of Jenson's voice filling the sound of the other end.

"Emily invited me to a party and she wants us to go. Now I know you don't trust her but you don't trust anything in the world. This can be the chance to get to know-"

"I don't like parties. And if there's a party, there will be Crimson there. I don't want to be anywhere near that guy." Rosemary said,

"Ricky will be there and from what I heard Taylor really wants you to be there. If you let her down, you'll only be something you hate — a failure. You want to be a failure?"

Rosemary pinched the bridge of her nose before she stood up and walked over to the window to see Taylor's room. She wanted to see if Jenson was just lying about the whole thing but she couldn't even see into Taylor's room. The window was closed, which was weird. Everything had been weird.

"I hate you." Rosemary muttered, sighing, "Gaslighting me isn't always going to work."

"Doing it because I love you — be there in an hour — bye," Jenson said, hanging up the phone.

Rosemary then tossed her phone onto her bed before walking out of the room and making her way down the hall. When she got to Ricky's room, she knocked. It took a few minutes but Ricky eventually opened the door, standing in his pj pants and plain white t-shirt. He had headphones over his head but one of the earpieces was hanging off slightly from his ears.

He stared at his sister, waiting for her to say something but she was so surprised at his outfit that she was at a lot of words. Rosemary knew her brother very well and she also knew that he wouldn't be caught dead outside in his cartoon pjs. So, that either meant that he wasn't planning on going anywhere for the rest of that day or he's gone completely insane.

Ricky snapped his fingers back and forth trying to regain Rosemary's attention. Rosemary nodded and cleared her throat before looking past him and at the clock that was on his dresser. It read; 8:19; that wasn't too bad for Rosemary.

"Why aren't you dressed? Rosemary asked, causing Ricky to look down at his outfit, "The party's going to start in a little."

"Party? What par..." He trailed off as his phone buzzed. He looked down at it for a moment before smiling and looking back up, "I'll be dressed for the party in a minute. Hold up." He said before closing the door and leaving Rosemary there for a moment. She scratched the back of her head before she saw the door open back up. Ricky was holding a plain black tie. "Here you go, wear this with your button-up shirt, but don't button it up all the way, you'll look like a geek."

Rosemary looked down at the tie, "Mom said-"

"Mom's not here," Ricky said,

Rosemary sighed before reaching out and taking the tie. She then ran her fingers over the lines on the tie. She smiled before looking back up at her brother, who was rolling his eyes. She then looked back down at the tie and nodded before she walked back a little before turning around and making her way back to her room. The minute the door shut – all her mother's words went out of her head.