"I said no, Ryan!" Rose almost screamed. When the older boy asked her once again, she couldn't take it anymore. She pushed him away and in the process ripped his black tank top diagonally from the collar. Ryan looked down at his shirt, then up at Rose with a smirk.
"Well, if you want to play rough, let's play rough," Ryan said, anvancing towards Rose. She slowly backed up until she hit the foot of the bed. She looked behind her, then back at Ryan with fear in her eyes.
The front door to the house opened and a blonde boy, the same age as Rose, walked in with his backpack. He grinned as he realized he had once again came home early and avoided a test in his geography class.
"The Bradster has once again missed a test. Oh yeah," he said, to himself. He put his bookbag on the floor beside him and suddenly heard something. Screaming. He had heard screaming. He walked down the hallway, following the sound, until he got to the door of his brother's bedroom. His brother, at nineteen, went to college, but had night classes. Meaning that when his brother was home, he was at school, and vice versa. He turned the doorknob slowly until it wouldn't turn anymore. The door was locked.
Brad put his ear to the door to try and find out why there was screaming.
"Please, Ryan, stop," a female voice begged. Brad gasped as he recognized the voice.
"Rose," he whispered. He continued to listen.
"Why should I?" he heard his brother ask menacingly. "You're the bitch who ripped my shirt. Now be a nice little whore and do what I say."
"What's going on?" Brad asked himself. Then he heard Rose scream again and slowly backed away. He ran back down the hallway to his own room and locked the door. His brother could never find out what he had just heard.
Twenty minutes later, he heard someone coming down the hallway. Two sets of footsteps. He assumed that it was his brother and Rose.
"Now wasn't that fun?" Ryan asked. "Maybe next time you'll learn to say yes." Brad heard something hit the floor. He assumed it was Rose. He heard her whimper.
"Please...just leave me alone, Ryan," she whispered. Brad heard a slap and winced as Rose cried out in pain.
"None of this gets out of here, you understand?" Ryan asked. "If I get word that you told anybody, I will personally hunt you down and kill you." Footsteps slowly faded away, and Brad assumed that Rose had left. Then more footsteps went the other direction. Brad opened the door and quickly grabbed his backpack. He ran out the door and back to school. A test wasn't near as bad as what Ryan would do to him.
The next school day, Rose went to school as if nothing had happened. She stared at her feet as she walked. How could she have trusted him? How could she have let him overpower her? She suddenly bumped into somebody and looked up to meet two dark eyes. She gasped as she realized that they belonged to a person. She tried to pass him but he grabbed her arm.
"Hey, I've seen you around before. You look more stressed out than usual," he said, and she pulled away and ran off down the hallway and around the corner. He looked after her in amazement. "Was it something I said?"
"I don't think that's it," a voice said. The boy turned around to face an African-American girl. "You didn't say anything offensive. She must be really stressed out about something to have run away from you like that. Though I have absolutely no idea what could be bothering her."
"Yeah, Trixie, but she's never been that stressed out," the boy said. "I really need to find out what's wrong with her. What's her name?"
"Oh, her name?" the girl asked. "Um, I think it's Rose something. I'm not sure."
"Well I think she needs someone to talk to, and who else but the--" the boy stopped talking.
"But the?" she asked, waiting impatiently for him to finish his sentence.
"But the...macdaddy of New York City?" the boy asked, unsure of his own answer. The girl looked at him strangely.
"Whatever, Jakie, I've gotta get to mythobiology class. See ya!" she called. She ran off with her books in tow and the boy began walking the path Rose had taken so quickly. He chuckled as he thought of something funny, then spotted her in front of a locker. She had a photograph and was ripping it to shreds.
"Take that, and that, and that!" she mumbled as she continued ripping the photograph. Jake walked up to her and smiled innocently.
"Hi, I was just passing by and I thought that--" Jake began. Rose held her hand up in front of his face.
"Stop right there. I don't want any sympathy from anybody," she said. "Can't everybody just leave me alone?" Jake held his hands up in defense.
"Yo, I was just going to ask you if you maybe wanted to talk about whatever's bothering you over dinner, but I guess you don't want to talk about it," Jake said. Rose looked up at him. She had been staring at the ground again.
"You know, I can't really handle being with anybody at the moment. I can't trust anybody right now," she said, then looked back at the shreds of paper at her feet. "And to think I actually liked him."
"I'm taking a wild guess here, but I'm thinking that 'he' did something to you. Whatever he did, you can tell me. You can trust me, Rose," Jake said. Rose's head snapped back up.
"I don't trust you," she said. "I don't trust anybody. I just want to be left alone!" With that said, she took her books and walked away. He looked down at the paper shreds and sighed.
"Well I have a way to find out, even if you don't want me to," Jake said, picking up the shards of paper and throwing them in a nearby trash can. "I just want to help."
Okay, that's the end of Chapter 1. I warned you, it's rated "M" for a reason! So if this disturbed you in any way, please don't read anymore. It just gets better. Anyways, just wanted to let you know that.
Also, I have a co-author! She's a writer on and her pen name is Shonen Nagasaki. She's my bestest friend in the whole world! She's also my personal illustrator, and it's so cool to see her pictures depicting scenes in this story. Oh, and we've already got sequels planned out...just as a heads up. See you on the dark side!
-CS07 and Shonen