Rosette

Chapter 1: Introduction

She sat in her car for a moment, trying to calm down, she didn't want to have an anxiety attack at the party and she didn't want to ruin Olivia's birthday. She took a deep breath as she took her keys out and looked ahead at a tree and its swaying leaves, these were the things that always calmed her down, trees, flowers and the sky. She stepped out of her car and went within the entrance gate. She then made her way to the front door, looking at the grass and flowers on either side of her.

As she walked up to the door of her best friend's house, she found a forlorn white flower laying on the ground. She couldn't help picking it up. With the flower delicately twirling between her index finger and thumb, she knocked on the door. She fiddled with the bag she had crossed over her chest, the worry of seeing all the other people that would be there was slowly, yet not completely, being dispersed through the small action.

Olivia came to the door with a smile, "Hey, Rose, come in. Why're you so late? Everyone's already here," she said, motioning for her to come in.

"Got stuck in traffic," came the reply, which was true but not the full truth. Rosette smiled as she walked in, trying to stable her breathing, which only got more erratic as she heard everyone talking and the loud music playing. "Happy birthday by the way."

"Thank you." Olivia giggled, as she pulled Rosette into a hug.

The room had very loud music playing and was filled with girls from their school, all sat around on the couches or standing on the side conversing. Rosette couldn't help but wish she was back home, alone and reading, a party was never a place she felt comfortable in, even if she knew everyone in it well. The room wasn't decorated but the amount of snacks and boardgames on the side made up for that. When a group of girls saw Rosette they stood up and came towards her, all with excited smiles on their faces.

"Hey, Rosette. How's your summer been?" a girl said with a welcoming smile, but Rosette still failed to calm her nerves, and continued to twirl the flower, to fiddle with the strap of her handbag, neither helping her calm down anymore.

"It was good. How was yours?" she said, trying to be nonchalant, but she could still feel her nerves taking over.

"Mine was good." The girl then turned to Olivia. "Can you imagine, in just a few days we'll start our final year."

Olivia carried on talking with the girls excitedly, being the extrovert she was. Rosette tried to talk with them but her soft voice would mostly go unheard beneath the loud music. Soon she grew bored and felt very out of place. And when Olivia saw Rosette looking at the floor and fidgeting, she tried to subtly include Rosette into the conversation, but it was a useless task since Rosette was feeling very overwhelmed in this situation and didn't want to talk.

Olivia was soon being dragged away so she can be shown something, she looked back at Rosette with a sad smile but Rosette was still stuck in her headspace. Rosette flickered her eyes all over the room, her thumb and finger still gently twirling the flower between them.

Everyone around looked very busy, talking to everyone. Rosette twirled the flower round and round and watched on; I feel like a spectator of my own life, she thought. She wanted to converse with ease like everyone around, but she just couldn't get herself to feel comfortable. She just wanted everyone to leave so she and Olivia could have their sleepover started.

She stood there by the door and the staircase for a moment, then tried to go over to people but  she grew too anxious and returned to her spot again. She looked at the paintings and photography taken by Olivia's father that was stuck on the wall and felt at ease. They have such a magic to them, she thought, then remembered the second time she came to this house, about a year and a half ago. She was admiring a particular painting, that ever since has been her favorite, and is still up by Olivia's room. The painting was of a lady with a white shawl around her head and shoulders looking straight at the viewer with a steady gaze and the black background around her made her further the focal point of the painting. She was so enameled by it that she didn't notice him watching her looking at it. When she heard him take a step closer to her, she blushed so deeply that he smiled and offered it to her but she wouldn't take it, she was far too embarrassed of being caught in her reverie and in being offered something so generously.

Ever since Rosette has been so fidgety and nervous around him, less so than she was around most people but still she was less comfortable around him than before. Ever since his eyes always seemed to wonder when he looked at her, like he was trying to undo something just to see how and why it worked the way it did.

Rosette again and again twirled the flower, the only thing that seemed to matter to her right then, again like she always was, she was stuck in a reverie, at this point, this was just a habit of hers. To crawl back into her mind, whenever this world felt too neglecting of her.

"Why're you standing alone?" a girl called to her, making her heartbeat speed up again. She recognized the girl from school.

"I-I was just going to the bathroom actually," she stuttered, feeling so much like an idiot as she walked away with a ragged breathing and her heart beating strongly in her chest. She really forgot she was in a party for a moment.

She snuck into the kitchen, holding the dainty flower in a fist. Half the petals were crumpled into her tight grip. Her heart was beating erratically, and she cursed herself for being so socially anxious. She pushed the kitchen door open and froze.

"Hi," she smiled in surprise at Jack, Olivia's dad, who sat at the head of the kitchen table, adding more details to a sketch of his. He was dressed in a black shirt and jeans and wore an opened blue flannel. His brown hair looked like all that's been done to it was be brushed back by his hand, and yet it worked well on him.

"Hey." He looked up skeptically, wondering if everything was alright in his daughter's birthday party. "Is everything alright?"

"Yeah, I'm good," she said, interpreting the question in another way. And Jack knew right then that she wasn't fine, he knew she was facing the same ordeal she faced all the time; being around people she's not used to.

She stood for a moment fidgeting with the flower before pretending that she came for a soda, and walked to the fridge to take a breath and grabbed a sprite can. Jack watched her as she closed the fridge and stood for a moment looking sadly at the door she came from, feeling like she had to go back, he cleared his throat subtly to get her attention and nodded his head to the chair next to him.

She swallowed down her fears, clutching the flower in her hand tighter as she took the seat by him. She still felt anxious, wishing that she convinced Olivia to let her come after the party for their sleepover, she knew Olivia would understand but she still wanted to try for her friend.

The only sound in the room was Jack's pencil scratching the paper as he added subtle shadows to the sketched man's face and the loud yet dulled sound of the music coming through the door. "So how's the party going?"

"Fine," she mumbled. Twirling the bent and crumpled flower as gently as she could. She was unconscious of the frown on her face as she focused on the thoughts that degraded her for her lack of social skills, which ultimately wasn't her fault, it was how she was raised.

Jack was silent and the sound of his pencil ceased, as he looked at the flower in her hand. "Did you pluck that from the garden?" he asked, trying to make it sound as gentle as possible so she knew he wasn't mad.

"No, it was just laying on the ground." She felt herself become anxious again, like she's being confronted for doing something she didn't do, and so her thoughts caved in around her more, it was how she protected herself. He watched as she began to twirl it harshly.

"You know it's very delicate, right? You're being too harsh on it," he said, but somehow they both knew he was talking about something else. Her eyes flicked to him, as she didn't know what to say. "Give it to me. Don't ruin such a pretty and innocent thing."

A/N

I think there's an obvious repetition in what I choose to write, about shy girls that don't feel comfortable in this world; I guess that's what I am. This, writing this and all the other things I write, makes me feel less like that, like I actually do have a place in this world. I don't know. Do you feel like that sometimes? Like you never feel quite right being here, part of this world? How do you get yourself to stop feeling like that?

Also, I found a secret in this world and it's William Blake's Songs of Innocence and of Experience, read it! The title of this chapter is actually his poem and not just a random word that I've chosen, the one that begins his book Song of Innocence and not the one that begins Experience. I love the poem, it reads like music.