Mark My Words

89 | Bet

On the way to the cafeteria, they passed the entrance to the library. The floor-length glass windows stopped Rosalie, just for a second, and she caught herself searching for an empty table in there. In doing so, she called attention to herself from the guys when Jamie-Lee accidentaly ran into her from behind.

She staggered forward as Jamie put his hands out and caught her by the waist. "Oh, sorry! I wasn't paying attention—"

"You never pay attention to your surroundings," Lennie said.

"My attention is just fine, excuse you," Jamie snapped.

Rosalie shooed Jamie's hands off of her waist as she turned around and towards the library door. "If you two are done bickering, I'm gonna work in the library today. I'll see you guys later," she said with a smile. She slipped into the library and waved at Jamie-Lee's dumbfounded face.

When she shut the door, Dylan turned to them and bopped them both on the top of their heads, and she swore she heard him through the glass saying, "You scared her away!" as Jamie-Lee rubbed at his head and Lennie fixed his perfect hair. Rosalie shook her head at them and wandered off down an aisle of books.

The Bradshaw library, for the most part, went unused by Rosalie. It was difficult for her to find a purpose there aside from research papers and, well, papers in general. As much as she loved to read over the summers, the school year pushed her free time to its limit. And now, with Nationals on the way, she couldn't make extra time to dedicate to reading. Even with their practices limited now, she found all of her free time being occupied more and more by homework.

Wasn't school supposed to get easier senior year? she thought, studying the books on the shelf. There was a book put on display, its cover facing her, and she tugged it down from eye level and studied the cover. Before putting it back onto its stand, she paused at the gap between her and the aisle across from her where a tuft of ginger hair went off to the side.

There were plenty of gingers at Bradshaw, but there Rosalie was, scrambling to put the book back before hurrying around the end of the aisle to peek around the corner.

The row was empty.

Rosalie had never yearned to see someone so much before. She had felt it, for a short while, when Sami transferred to Adams.

She figured this was only worsened by the fact that she knew Joanna would come back, and so she anticipated seeing her everywhere she went. But then she remembered: she was barely through the first week of Joanna's suspension.

Either that or I'm losing my mind, she mused, scratching at her bun as she turned to head for one of the benches cut into the windowsills along the library wall. There, amongst the stretches of light interspersed between bookshelves along the window walls, she found someone vaguely familiar sitting in the window sill Rosalie had seen from down the aisle sitting empty.

Rosalie stared at the girl, and she stared back, black hair standing high and fluffy over her pale eyebrows. The hair sat on her head like it was floating, and were it not for the rumpled collar and untied Bradshaw tie, Rosalie might not have recognized those piercings.

"Joanna?" Rosalie hissed, and Joanna flung a hand up to her lips, gesturing for Rosalie to shut the fuck up.

Rosalie gasped and slapped a hand over her mouth. She looked around at the state of the library, and the fact that there were so few empty seats. She hoped no one heard her.

She hurried to the window sill, dropping her books on the cushion as she knelt against it, leaning towards Joanna. Joanna pulled her knees up and dramatically readjusted her black wig, which very clearly looked like it hadn't been brushed after she bought it three years ago in one of those sketchy, pop-up Halloween stores.