Teardrops of Roses [Completed]

Chapter 1: Old in Town

I whipped my head around to see three tanned and slim girls walking away, tossing their bleached blonde hair behind them. On the left was Samantha, giving me a final deathly stare while I struggled to find true justification for her hostility towards me.

She was the one who had replaced my spot in the group to complete the trio. I'm guessing that alone was more than enough for her to behave that way. Honestly, I wasn't going to steal my old spot back. There was no desire left in me to ever be like those girls again. 

I shrank into my chair and sighed long and hard at the day. Everything just felt so foreign.

"Oh don't mind them, Rose, they're just being them usual, fake-tan-ass looking-ass bitches," Mandy said as she bit into her apple from across the lunch bench. "You know, their hair isn't even blonde. Well except for Cassie's. Melissa and Samantha get their roots done every month and insist on it being the exact same shade as Cassie's. Pssh, talk about sheep, it's a wonder their hair doesn't fall out at seventeen!"

"Really?" I exclaimed, pretending that I didn't already know this. I myself had once wrecked my hair by repeatedly going platinum blonde.

I looked over at my new acquaintance who was also my lab partner for human biology. Mandy was the very first person to reach out and talk to me today, and I'd clung desperately by her side ever since. Thankfully she didn't seem to mind, and now I guess we both shared the same interest of seriously disliking a particular group of individuals in the school. 

Mandy leaned across the table and looked at me. "Now what did they mean by you coming back from disappearing into thin air?"

Damn it. I was surprised that she caught onto that. "Oh that." I looked down at my lunch and stuck my fork in. The cold and sad chicken pie stared back at me offering no solace. "Nothing much except that I, er... I used to know them."

Her eyes widened. "What, how? Didn't you only just move here?"
I looked at her and a smile appeared on my face. What a shock she was about to get.

"Actually, I came here for a few months back in grade eight, and they um... Hard to say now but, they used to be my best friends."

She gasped. "What? No way! Maybe we had different classes but I swear I never saw you before. But really, you?  Best friends with... them?  No offense but it's a bit surprising." She tried to suppress a laugh and I shot her a look.

"What? I did say 'used to' after all," I expressed quotation in the air.

She shook her head, a small smile playing on her lips. "Hey, no judgment here. You just don't seem the type."

"I know... Well, things were different back then," I told her as we observed the group of girls we were talking about. They were constantly surrounded by sporty jocks and social-media-obsessed girls. The popular type, in other words. Looking at them was like looking back through a time capsule.

"I guess a lot has changed," I frowned mentioning this more to myself than my new friend. Not wanting to continue on this subject any longer, I decided to change topics and I was glad that she didn't press on further.

"So," I began, grasping my hands together. "Have you seen the new English teacher yet? Apparently, he's very cute."

Now I was quite used to saying comments like this. After years of practice being 'normal', I found myself often saying lewd things about boys that I had absolutely no interest in just to be included in the conversation. And man did I have plenty of practice being in an all-girl's school where boys made up 90% of the discussion.

"Rose. He's not just cute, he's freaking hot! Like, Gucci underwear model hot. I took a peek into his class in the morning and almost fainted!" She exclaimed while I laughed again out of awkwardness. "Don't tell me you have him for your class?"