Rosette

Chapter 2: Romance

"I'm going to press this little flower so it doesn't start to decay," he says as he places it in an random page at the back of his sketchbook.

"So what're you drawing?" she asks after an uncomfortable and deafening silence, her voice coming out soft and very quiet as it usually does. She looks down from his peering eyes to the sketch book he held.

"It's a picture of my dad. Olivia wanted to see if I could draw someone with just my memory, and I sorta could, I mean I forgot how his eyebrows are supposed to look and there's something that doesn't look right about his hair, but for the most part it looks just like him," he says.

she smiles and hums in acknowledgement, to her, it seemed so sweet, her Dad would never have listened to her like that, so to her their relationship seemed so sweet.

"What book are you reading now?" he asks as he takes up his pencil and continues adding detail to his artwork.

"A Christmas Carol."

"You're aware it's not Christmas," he says quizzically with an adoring smile, peeking up at her.

"Yes, I'm aware," she say, with a little laugh intertwining with her words.

"Do you like it?"

"I love it. It makes me feel happy to be part of the world, I don't know, it's just really good," she says, losing her confidence as her words revert back to her, sounding a lot less impactful than it did in her mind. "Have you ever read it?"

"Yes, twice actually. Both during Christmas of course." They both laugh. "I get what you mean though. There's this subtle magic in it that just makes you feel like all that matters is the people around you. I wish more assholes read that book, it'd surely make them kinder."

"I agree." She laughs, mostly by the fact that he just cursed in front of her so nonchalantly.

"You have a nice laugh. I like it." He smiles.

Her face turns really red as she mumbles a thank you.

"I mean it. I really like it."

She smiles, feeling herself be more at ease as he gazed into her eyes.

"I also really like how, when it comes to it, you're very reliable. You can really take control when you need to, it's a really nice quality to have," he adds when he sees that this sudden turn made her really flustered. "You know I'll always be thankful for you after how you helped Olivia last year, you know with the bullying."

"Who wouldn't stick up for a friend? I was just doing what anyone would've done, it's not really anything different to what anyone would do."

"You'd be surprised. During college, I let a lot of things slide when it came to my friends. People would curse at them and try to start fights and I'd just tell my friends to back down. Sometimes I wish I put a fist into those peoples's face. It's why me and my college friends stopped talking, they deserved someone they could count on and I wasn't that. What I'm trying to say is that not everyone can stick up for their friends the way you did. So I'm incredibly thankfully for you." His gentle eyes, his cautious smile and his slightly uneasy breathing, he really can make her nervous in a way other than her regular social anxiety. Somehow, she felt calm with him but nervous in a way that makes her always want him to like her. She could tell that if he liked someone then that person is a good person, he had a really good judgement.

"You know what I like about you," she says, deciding to take a chance and forces the words she has always felt about him to come out. "Is how you always make me feel calm and protected, I don't really feel that way much."

A sad smile comes to his lips. "I'll always be here Rose." He places his hand on top of hers, his sketchbook long forgotten on his lap. "Please don't forget that."

"Rosette come back to the party! We're playing truth or dare!" Olivia slammed open the door to see a very familiar sight of her friend and her father talking, normally about books. Rosette smiles wearily at Jack then left the kitchen to go to with her friends.

A/N

This is a story heavily based on characters. I hope you're excited to watch their relationship develop more into romance. There will be a lot of things to come but they can't happen until they get together, and so this might feel like they're getting close very fast but I hope you can tell that they've known each other for a long time and have always been friends and now this friendship is getting deeper and more profound until they're the only being the other can imagine spending a lifetime with.

For this chapter's poem it's by Edgar Allen Poe.