Murder To Excellence

23.

“Give me a second.”

While the principal went to typing, Raphael’s hand traveled up Rose’s thigh. She was wearing jeans so there was no easy access, but it didn’t stop him.

“Raphael, stop,” she whispered. She closed her legs as tight as she could and trapped his hand.

“Why?” he didn’t even bother to whisper, making the principal glance at him since he thought Raphael was talking to him. “Why do you want me to stop?”

“I swear I never should’ve asked you to come with.”

“Are you two ready?” the two faced the principal again who had been waiting with a small, forced smile on his face. When Rose nodded, he started reading from his computer screen, “This is one of the many things that have happened. I quote ‘I’ll fucking stab you in the fucking eye if you fucking talk to me one more fucking time’. This was Taylor to one of her fellow students.”

“Oh!” he lifted his index finger and continued, “This was Taylor to one of her teachers. Again, I quote ‘Ew, your breath smells like a shitload of coffee and it’s not okay. You either need to back up or I’ll give you some chewing gum. I might have some in my bag’.”

Rose had such a hard time trying not to laugh. Yes, it was bad Taylor had said these things, but the way her principal tried to mimic Taylor was beyond hilarious.

“I hope you do understand such behavior is highly inappropriate and, since you’re the one taking care of her right now while both her parents are still absent, I expect you to do something about that,” he added.

“I’ll try,” she mumbled in response. She knew Taylor way too well and she wasn’t easy to convince. At the age of sixteen she wanted to live her life the way she wanted to and everyone that came in the way of that, got scolded and simply humiliated by her.

                                                                                                                                                                  ***

Once in a while both sides of Rose’s family got together. When Rose talked about family, it was usually her family from her dad’s side since her mom’s family lived all the way across the country so she didn’t see them that often. But when they did show up… it was adventurous. Not only Rose and her siblings had a crooked relationship with them, because they barely saw or knew each other, but so did April for the same exact reason.

It wasn’t like both sides didn’t get along; they did, very well. But April’s family was a bit different and out-spoken, that being the reason they liked George as much as they did.

Today they all went to church. Since a lot of April’s relatives couldn’t be there at Pa and Ma’s funeral, they still wanted to show their respect by showing up to this tribute.

Rose rarely went to church and it was like that ever since she was little. She was raised religiously, but her parents taught her it didn’t necessarily make you a better Christian than anybody else if you went to church or not.

And it had been ages since she last stepped into a church and she didn’t even know when her last time was, maybe before college even.

“Rose, is that you?” Rose immediately knew who that voice belonged to even though her back was turned towards her. “Rose, stop walking!” her grandmother yelled. Together with Raphael and Taylor they were one of the few ones who still had to go inside.

“Grandmother,” sang Rose while faking excitement. She spun around and spread her arms to greet Grandmother.

Ever since her last visit, Grandmother hadn’t changed one bit. She still wore her vintage Versace headscarf, huge sunglasses, a cotton candy colored coat and had that same old notorious handbag with her.