la vie en rose | blake richardson

prologue

"Another one?" Blake raises his eyebrows as he watches the stranger walk past him, a glare held in his eyes as he speaks to his best friend, who's standing in the doorway.

"This doesn't concern you, Blake," Cassie shakes her head, accepting the coffee Blake was ever so graciously passing to her.

"You're sleeping with strangers on my tour bus. So yes, it does concern me," Blake speaks harshly, pushing past Cassie and into the halls of, as you heard, his tour bus.

You're probably wondering how we got here, so let me start from the beginning.

Cassie Anderson and Blake Richardson: a pair of nineteen year old best friends from Manchester. Both Cassie and Blake have been polar opposites of each other, since the day they met, hence the complications.

Cassie, an obedient school girl who had her way with the students, but would have never crossed a teacher. Some would have considered her as popular, but no one could ever put the name to the face. Cassie was the Cassie, and if you were to meet her, it would be a struggle to refrain yourself from asking questions.

Blake on the other hand, had no idea on how to handle the students he grew up with. They were all so... weird. Some of them were tiny midgets and some of them were tall giants with beards on their faces at the age of fourteen, and Blake refused to ever get himself mixed into such a cocktail crowd of variety. When it came to teachers, though, Blake had his way. You see, if Blake wanted to pass High School without boring himself to death, he had to double cross a few teachers ever now and then, at least.

But against Blake's wishes, he failed to remain unknown. With his musical talents under his belt, girls swarmed him regardless of his approval. Yes, most heterosexual guys would have taken it to their opportunity, but Blake could never choose, so he simply remained undecided.

That was until what I like to call the 'banger baggers' were born. You see, Blake and Cassie may have been on the complete opposite ends of the social spectrum, but they were supermarket employees all the same.

On Friday nights, when everyone was out having fun and the lack of sleep was catching up to them, Blake and Cassie worked the night shift at their local supermarket, aka a literal ghost town. Literally. There were no costumers.

When Cassie and Blake soon realised that they were basically getting paid to hangout, they decided to be friends. Where was the harm? They both lived in the same suburb, they were the same age, went to the same school, both liked One Direction, so what could have gone wrong?

They almost failed their GCSE's. That's what could have gone wrong.

Nights of singing along to bangers with Niall Horan soon turned into nights of teary eyes and text books rummaged all around the bagging area. From Cassie struggling to teach Blake how to speak French in order for him to pass his exam, to Cassie having to learn how to play a guitar in less than twenty four hours because she had skipped her music classes, failing to realise music meant instruments, and Cassie had no instrumental talent whatsoever.

   "Blake, just spit back something we've learned," Cassie orders, sat across Blake as they bus back to his house, struggling to get Blake to the point of possibly being able to pass his French exam on Monday.

   "I haven't learned anything," Blake groans, hands in his hair and tears of frustration forming in his eyes.

   "You're a songwriter, so you're good at adjectives. Do you know any French adjectives, possibly any that could describe me?"

   "La Vie en Rose," Blake speaks unsurely, eyes slowly raising to look at Cassie.

   "Life in pink?" Cassie chuckles, "Blake, when have you ever seen me wear pink?"

   "I don't know," Blake groans, "it's a song, and a movie."

   "We're going to go home, translate those lyrics, and you're going to memorise the French version to the English translation, capeesh?" Cassie explains, pressing the buzzer to let the bus driver know their stop was approaching.

   "Yes, Miss."

   Blake failed his French GCSE that Monday. But, continued on to pass his others, giving him enough passes to complete his GCSEs. Cassie, too, failed a class, that class being music, as expected. Cassie wasn't as lucky as Blake, as she didn't pass enough classes to retrieve her GCSE. But, Cassie being the person she is, left school anyway.

   There's not one day that goes by without Blake randomly singing La Vie en Rose when around Cassie, or calling her 'pinkie', since the reoccurrence. It was an event that proved Blake could trust Cassie, and that Cassie was committed to the friendship they held together.

   But now, one year later, Blake and Cassie are more opposites than ever.

   Blake's in a band, which is set to tour in a month or so. Whilst Blake is at rehearsals, Cassie's caught in her viscous dating cycle of quickly going through guys, and throwing them to the side when they haven't proved their worth fast enough.

   Blake would excuse this behaviour was pickiness, but any smart person would put it down to Cassie's fear of being rejected instead of the rejectee, and her lack of trust to people who, just like her, fail to open up right away.

   It was something Blake was trying to help Cassie work on, but he couldn't get her to learn how to play guitar in twenty four hours, and he couldn't get her to wait just as long for a guy.

   Patience was something Cassie lacked. She liked things to be set in stone, offical and planned right away. Being a learning interior designer, she doesn't like haziness and likes everything to be able to add up as clearly as numbers on a piece of paper, or measurements of a diameter.

   Dating was one of those things that wasn't crisp or simple enough for Cassie. People hold back their dark side until the third date, or if you're really unlucky, until you're in an offical relationship. But Cassie couldn't wait that long. She needed to know who she was seeing, right as she saw them, and when she knew she wasn't going to get that, she'd sleep with them in hopes something would change and if not, she moved on.

   Blake was unaware of the seriousness of Cassie's behaviour, something that frustrated his friends whenever he tried to tell him that what she was doing, wasn't okay. Blake understood what he had already known, but he can't make understanding for something that isn't yet known, and that's where everything's going wrong.

   Blake's standing up to someone who, on a regular basis, is breaking evident morals he holds within himself, and he's yet to realise.

   But Cassie's walls are wearing thin, and Blake's senses are only getting stronger.

   Two can only keep a secret if they, themselves, are the hidden fact.