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Khoshekh was waiting for Rosalie when she returned home that evening, and tried desperately to stop the door as it closed. She used her foot to dislodge him from the door and said, politely, "No, my good sir, you may not leave."
In the midst of scolding Khoshekh, a voice sounded from down the hall. "Rosalie! Is that you?"
"Yes, Ma!" she said. "Just back from practice!"
Rosalie's mother stepped out from her office, black hair pulled back from her face with a tie-dyed headband. Rosalie meandered over, side-stepping Khoshekh's adamant quest to trip her. At the door to her mom's office, Rosalie lowered her backpack to the ground.
"How was your first day?"
Rosalie heaved a sigh before she could stop herself. She sucked it back in, though, and said, "It was fine."
Her mom raised an eyebrow, and it became apparent that there was no way a sigh like that could be skimmed over and chalked off as "fine."
"Okay, well. There's this new girl who's just... rah!" Rosalie throttled her hands in the air like she was strangling someone. She sauntered into her mom's office with a dramatic slump and threw her hands up. "She started a fight, punched a guy right in front of me, and then she's in all of my classes! And just when I thought I was in the clear, Principle O'Gallagher forced her to sign up for a sport, and so now she's on my team."
"She has to go through tryouts, doesn't she?"
"Well. Sort of..." A sore subject by now, but news that would likely spread through the school by tomorrow. And so, Rosalie delved into the tale of how Joanna deflected a soccer ball at full speed whilst doing a cartwheel. Despite her epic tactics, killer aim (sorry Alyssa), and strong arm, Joanna was just as useless as her motivation when it came to applying any of that in an actual scrimmage or practice.
"It's almost like her attention span is limited to horsing around," Rosalie explained.
"ADHD?"
"Mom, come on."
"What? I'm being serious. She could just have ADHD and you're making a bigger deal out of it than you should be," she said, and Rosalie rolled her eyes and slumped in the cushioned armchair across from her mom.
The kettle in the corner of the room was boiling and clicked off a second later. Rosalie followed her mother with her eyes, watching as she pulled out two mugs and filled them each. She topped it off with a scoop of tea leaves and let them float idly in the water.
"Kids with ADHD aren't always problem cases, you know," Rosalie said. "I think this is more of a topic of morals than mental health."
"Right. Sorry. I guess I'd have to meet her myself for the latter," she said, waving a hand dismissively. "Speaking of—you mentioned Sami wanted to throw a party."
"Throw a party, and then associate it with the soccer girls and swim team," Rosalie corrected. "And? Consensus?"
"Denied," she said, and Rosalie didn't have the energy to slump any further. She knew the answer before her mother even opened her mouth. "Sorry, Rose."
"It's fine. Hosting parties is always stressful anyways," she muttered, picking at the dandelion-yellow fabric on her chair. She kicked a leg over one of the armrests.
After several more minutes spent reclining in her mother's office, Rosalie took her tea and went to her room, Khoshekh was already waiting at the steps, eager as ever, and ran ahead to Rosalie's room. He stood outside her white door, and then again at the bed as Rosalie dragged her backpack up to it.
Her room mimicked a lot of what the rest of the house emphasized—cleanliness, and a certain distance from "personal touch." The walls—all except for the one that shared a wall with the first floor kitchen—were stark white, and the floors a pale linoleum. The wall backing her bed was all exposed brick, though, and she adored it with every fiber of her being.
She removed her newest polaroids from her bag, and began pinning them to the twine strung across the bricks. She pushed aside the fronds of her pothos plant and found a spot among other photos of Sami to contribute to.
Her favorite, most personal part of her room, however, happened to be the plethora of plants strewn across it. Ever since Rosalie was a child, she occupied her time and space to far too many plants for one child to care for. Because of that, many were overgrown from years of nurturing, and the pothos vines were starting to climb the twine across the brick. She unlatched a few so it could hang freely without tampering with her pictures.
She stepped back from the wall, and could already see it: Day two, day three, et cetera. They'd fill the wall before she knew it—her proudest accomplishment would be a picture of Lennie and Jamie-Lee moments before Joanna and Dylan would break up the party. Her next: a blurry shot of Ray scoring on Joanna, who stood slumped against the goal post while Jade Dalby threw her arms up in disgust in the corner of the picture.
"Jade can't stand Joanna," Rosalie said on the third day of a grueling practice. After a long talk with Coach Maguire, it was settled. She rolled onto her back, staring at the ceiling. "I think we're gonna start doing suicides for every time Joanna doesn't deflect the ball."
"That seems kind of counterproductive. Just make her do the suicides?" Sami said over the phone.
Rosalie kicked a leg into the air and grabbed onto her toes with her one free hand. "We've been doing that," she whined. "She doesn't care. And she has the stamina of some sort of demon. I told you—she's The Devil incarnate."
"What makes you think she'll care if the rest of you all do suicides?" Sami said, and added with a grumble, "Sounds like she's the least empathetic person around."
"More like phlegmatic in general. Even with that... stupid smile she manages to look apathetic."
Khoshekh butted his head up against Rosalie's, and she rubbed her hair into him until her bangs fell over her face. He preened with a rolling purr, and Sami "Aw!"ed from the other end of the line. "Tell Khoshekh I say hey! And that I miss him! Yes I do! Yes I do!"
"What are the odds your parents would let you study here instead of over there on your lonesome," Rosalie said with an added tinge of a whine. She pouted at nothing in particular as Sami hummed and debated the chances.
"Relatively high, I think. Let me ask. I'll text you the answer," he said.
"Okay! And we actually have to get shit done," she said, and he hummed distantly. "Promise?"
"Yeah! Oh, yeah, definitely. Okay—bye!" He hung up immediately after, and Rosalie glanced at his picture fading from her screen. She set her phone aside with a smile, and curled up onto her side so that her face nestled into Khoshekh's fur.
And, so, twenty minutes from then a knock sounded on the front door.
Rosalie flew out of her room and down the stairs, lunging two at a time. "IgotitIgotit!" she cried, but her mom was already on the foyer rug reaching for the door handle.
She opened it with Rosalie peering over her shoulder at an innocent-looking Sami. "Jenn! Lovely seeing you here," Sami greeted with a cheery smile on his perfectly brown complexion, all topped with finely combed black hair.
"I live here, Samuel," she deadpanned, and Sami replied with a set of peace signs. "Come on in."
Rosalie performed a discreet, victory dance as Sami stepped over the threshold. "Ma wanted me to bring you this," Sami said, holding up a thick-spined book. He presented it as if bestowing a sword to Rosalie's mother, who took it up casually and inspected the cover.
"Oh! I've been meaning to ask for this back. You're a dream, Sami—truly a dream," she said, and locked the door behind him before heading off down the hall. "I'll be in my office if either of you two need anything."
Sami did the wave with his eyebrows, and Rosalie stifled her giggle behind her hand. She grabbed him by the wrist and hurried back to the stairs. They all but raced each other to her room, footsteps thundering and sending Khoshekh into a nervous wreck by the time they bolted in through the door. Khoshekh abandoned the bed and dove out the door as Sami dove onto the quilt.
He took a long whiff of her sheets and said, "I love the smell of your room."
"I keep telling you it's the plants. Maybe you should get some to clear up that stale guy stench," she said with a wide sweep of her arms.
Sami twisted onto his bum and crossed his legs. "I always thought it was the paint. Which... may or may not be a health hazard now that I'm thinking about it."
"That explains why you act like you're high all the time," she joked, and Sami hooked his foot behind her knee and jerked.
She went down laughing, rolling over the bed. She would up with her head tucked against his knee, and settled in to stare up at his smiling face. Her own smile turned solemn, calm, and she sighed in relief. Being with Sami left all of her expectations behind her. It felt so easy to take on the world with him at her side. They were both in the same boat of too-similar parents dreaming the world of them. They powered through the struggle of impossible standards, and came out on top, and just a year away from valedictorian status.
"What do we start with?" he asked, tugging her bangs between two fingers. He twirled them and let them fall away.
"I don't know. I can't think straight," she confessed with a shake of her head. "You decide."
"Ha! Can't think straight..."
"Sami," Rosalie growled, sitting up in preparation for a fight. Instead, what she got was a textbook shoved in her face, and another two hours of vigorous studying. Her stack of homework for that day declined significantly, and provided just enough time for them to score eight hours of sleep. They were off to a good start, but Rosalie knew that it wouldn't last, not with so much on the line.
They reclined back on her pillows with Khoshekh as a safeguard between them. Rosalie wove her fingers through his fur and looked from Sami's profile to her ceiling of glow stars.
"Remember when we put those up there?" Sami asked, pointing to the stars. "I still remember all the constellations because of that."
"Side effect of replicating a northern hemisphere star map," Rosalie sighed.
"Side effect of having an astrophysicist for a mother," Sami grumbled, and Rosalie grinned, nudging him in the side. Tante Betsy Griffin was the sort of mother who willingly spent hours out on the dock during the summer days they spent at a cabin in the countryside. Rosalie and Sami used to bundle up at her side and search for constellations and shooting stars, and satellites as they crawled through the night sky at their usual slow, but noticeable pace.
Rosalie pointed to the long stretch of stars near the far corner of her room.
"Cancer?"
"No, south."
Sami threw his arms up."Hydra! Hydrate! Water time!"
They got up and padded to the kitchen as the clock ticked closer to Sami's weekday curfew. They poured glasses of lemonade and cheered to a new year, a new them.
"To Regionals," Sami said.
"To a Gold Key portfolio," Rosalie said. They linked their arms and tipped the lemonade back. Sami winked at her in the process, and she spat her lemonade out through her nose. She shrieked, hand clasped over her mouth. It burned all the way up her esophagus, and as Sami fell on the ground laughing, she stomped her feet and cried bloody-murder because ow.
n/a: I have yet to draw a picture of Sami D: But here's a bio for Rosalie!