The Rose Boys

Chapter Four

"Unemployable." I said out loud on my walk to school. The word seemed to reverberate through my skull.

The tall, pretty blond who tried to help me at the Student Employment Center shrugged her narrow shoulders. "I'm sorry but because of where you go to school, employers will not hire you."

"But I'm not rich!" I exclaimed. "Just because I'm going to St. Clairmont High, it doesn't mean that I'm rich. I'm just extremely lucky."

"Lucky or not..." The woman said, raising a perfectly arched eyebrow at me. "They don't want to hire bratty rich kids to do the job that hard working people who could use the money would do."

I sighed and headed through the wide iron gates that allowed access into the private school property. As far as I knew, this was the only exit out of the school grounds, lined with high iron fences. This crossing would mark my second pass through these gates.

The grounds weren't as busy as I thought they would be. I only saw a few ivory blazers out in the early autumn morning. I walked briskly towards the front entrance, eyes scanning for Tiffanie's black hair. 

I was absolutely prepaired to hurt her. I looked down at the bracelet and wondered if this was the reason why my father was fired. Quickly, I tucked it back under my sleeve to hide it. 

I pushed through the doors and headed towards my locker. I found her where I'd run into her last time. Rage seemed to bubble through my veins and make me think irrationally. It seemed to explode out my head.

"Hey Bitch!" I yelled at her, a singular voice in the quiet hallway.

Tiffanie's head turned in the direction of the noise, looking to see who was being yelled at. She saw only me. She looked almost scared. A bit of triumph seemed to swell in my chest. "Are you talking to me?" She asked, pointing at herself.

"Who else would I be talking to?" I spat. "Who do you think you are? How dare you do this to my family?" 

"What are you talking about." She asked, recovering her composure and pretending to be innocent. 

"You got my Dad fired!" I shouted angrily at her, as if shouting would make her get how angry I was with her. "Why did you do it?" 

"I saw you talking to one of The Rose Boys after I told you not to! Darren went into one of those crappy locker rooms they don't put anyone in after you did. I get what you're doing but sleeping your way through The Rose Boys won't make anyone like you more. I would have had more respect for you if you had kept your head down and pretended like you didn't exist like everyone else, you slut."

"I don't care what you think." I said, trying to calm down. "Just please fix the damage that you've caused."

She laughed right in my face. "Fix this? You deserve this. I'm going to make it so your Dad can't find a job. Then you won't be able to come here any more and everyone will thank me for ridding the school of one more piece of trash."

I couldn't do it anymore. I drew back my hand, already curled into a fist and moved to swing at her, using the force of my body to hit her hard. She gasped as she saw my fist coming for her but, before I could land the shot, someone grabbed me by the elbows and pulled me backwards.

"Hey!" I shouted, struggling against the large body that I'd fallen into.

"I didn't know it was okay to hit in school, maybe you need a time-out." Darren's voice chimed in close to my ear. 

I froze all over. I didn't know why, but I did.

"Darren Johnson." Tiffanie said happily. "Thank you for saving me from this crazy pauper."