Rose scratched her hand as she pulled the violin up to her. Take a deep breath in, then out. The chin rest was a little cold. Fingers ready, Rose took the bow and carefully arced over the four strings. The music that came out was heaven to the young girl`s ears. Music in front of her was just a front; she knew the song by heart. Her mother and a well-dressed gentleman sat on the couch in front of her, sipping tea and taking small nibbles of cookies Rose made earlier to impress the gentleman. Her mother was insistent on getting this man to like her and the music she could play.
Whatever her mother said, she went along. Play the violin now; play the violin after dinner; don`t go out and play, you have practice; time to practice Rose; I`ll do the dishes, go and practice; don`t worry about the mess in the hall, go practice. All of her orders revolved around the wood she straddled expertly in her sixteen year old hands. She couldn`t remember what it was like to have chores or do something with friends after school. Sure, she had a couple of friends, but not many. During school, Rose focused entirely on her school work. During lunchtime, Rose took her violin outside and had her fun time. She played what she wanted and danced to the sweet music she produced. After school, she was back to violin lessons.
The fast paced Irish jig she fiddled out would normally make her tap dance along, but not today. Today there was an important man to see her play. She would have to become perfect. Fingers working fast, Rose smiled and finished the song with a little bow. Both adults in front of her clapped politely. The gentleman stood up and went to shake Rose`s hand.
"That was a marvelous performance, dearie! Now, if you`ll excuse us, your mother and I have some things to discuss." He smiled widely and thanked her for the cookies. Rose nodded and packed her violin away quickly. She carried it to her room and shut the door to leave the adults to talk.
In her room, Rose enjoyed the sweet rebellion of digging out a laptop and logging on quickly. She smiled as she turned on an instant messaging application she installed ages ago. None of her friends were online, so she let it run behind the screens she pulled up. Rose checked the news, got caught up on her favourite internet novel, and aimlessly wandered the sites she frequented. The clock showed an hour had passed when she heard a knock on her bedroom door. Rose panicked and shoved the laptop under her bed just as her mother turned the doorknob.
"Sweetie, I have good news and bad news." Her mom always started conversations like that. "The good news is that Mr. White loved your performance. Bad news is that you`re not qualified to receive the scholarship, you need to work harder." With that, her mother closed the door and Rose sank into her bed. Not good enough, never good enough. Rose would have to work harder and be good enough. But even that would never be enough.
The next day, Rose brought her violin to school as always and did her lessons as always. She smiled at her friends in the halls, but didn`t stop to talk to them. She still felt sad about how badly she performed for Mr. White yesterday. At lunch, Rose walked outside to her favourite playing area. It was away from the building in the middle of a forested region. The trees were far away enough to create the perfect playing area. There was enough leg room to dance, enough cover to stay hidden, and enough acoustics to reverberate in her soul.
Violin poised, Rose began to pick out the rhythm she failed before. Her fingers moved faster and her feet danced to the happy jig. A smile cracked her face and she kicked dirt up around her. She swept her foot around her in a wide semicircle, leaping around the weeds growing around her and moved her feet to keep pace with the music. At the end, Rose kicked her right foot up and winked at the invisible audience. She took a bow and laughed at herself for being such an idiotic girl. She shouldn`t been doing such frivolous things. Life isn`t bliss, she knew that.
But that small part of her mind nagged her all the time. If life isn`t bliss, why do you feel so alive when you play like that. She always told herself she was just being an idiotic teenage girl. Rose read about the other teenagers, saw them at school. They were rebellious and outrageously free-spirited.
Her mind broke when clapping erupted around the woods, followed by a voice. "Wow! You`re an awesome violinist, and a pretty awesome dancer!" The girl`s voice came from behind her, a book held under her arm.
Rose panicked, grabbed her violin case and ran back into the safe halls. That girl couldn`t know who she was. There was no way she could trace it back to the quiet girl. Rose had to become more careful. No more carefree violin practice during lunch. Stupid girl, her mind scolded. Stupid, idiotic girl.
Math class rolled around at the end of the day. Rose gladly put her violin case under her seat and took out the geometry textbook and graph paper. The teacher was standing up front, as usual, writing the day`s lesson on the whiteboard in clear green ink. Mr. Egbert was one of her acquaintance`s dad. He was really nice and tried to make everyone feel like part of his family. Funnily enough, John Egbert was in the class as well.
All members of the Egbert family seemed overly friendly anyway. Mr. Egbert had one hobby Rose knew about, and that was baking. Goodness, he loved baking cookies and handing them out to students. John was nice to her, always smiled in the halls and had polite chit-chat in math when they sat near each other. But she never actually hung out with him outside school.
The bell rang and Mr. Egbert took attendance as usual. Rose took out a purple pencil and began the lesson ahead of class. She knew the concept and never really needed a teacher`s assistance. As Mr. Egbert was pausing to let students ask questions, the door opened cautiously.
"Uh, I`m sorry, is this Mr. Egbert`s math class?" A girl slid into the room carefully. The door closed behind her as she got her answer that the room she now resided in was in fact Mr. Egbert`s math classroom. "I`m sorry I`m late, I got lost.." Her voice trailed off as she surveyed the room.
Mr. Egbert beamed at her and welcomed the new student -Kanaya was her name. He told her to pick a seat next to the boy she thought was cutest. That elicited a giggle from half the classroom and the boys were now waiting patiently for her to decide. Kanaya nodded and started to move to the back. She picked the seat right next to Rose.
Rose looked up at the newcomer, finally, and realization hit to where she heard the name before. The new student was the girl who saw her in the woods earlier. She looked around quickly to see if a boy sat near her - there wasn`t. Was this a joke to her, or did Kanaya really swing that way?
Mr. Egbert nodded his approval in her seat choice and continued the lesson as planned. Kanaya tapped Rose`s arm and whispered at her. "I`m totally lost, can you help?" The geometry textbook on her desk hand`t been opened and the paper she pulled out had just her name on it, written in a careful script. Rose decided to take pity on the girl and lean over. "Page 413, we`re learning about volumes and surface areas of three-dimensional shapes."
Throughout the class, Rose kept glancing over at Kanaya, just to make sure she was keeping up with the class. Once or twice, Rose caught Kanaya glancing over at her. They both looked back to their papers in such instances. Rose felt a warmth dance across her cheeks as she felt embarrassed about being caught looking at the girl.
Class ended after an hour of silence from the two girls. Rose jumped up when the bell rang and slung her messenger bag over her shoulder. Out the door before most students, Rose walked towards the buses. Normally she got a ride to school by her mother and rode the bus in the afternoon. She boarded the bus second, like she normally did. The bus lurched to a start after all the students piled on, like it normally did. Rose stared out the bus window and waited patiently for her stop to loom into view.
Halfway through her bus ride, Rose`s eyes widened in horror. She forgot her violin in Mr. Egbert`s classroom. She knew it would be safe, but she wouldn`t be safe from her mother`s scolding when she found out. What could the girl do? The rest of the bus ride was panic filled and guilt ridden. Rose bit her lip and pondered over what she could do. Her stop came early and Rose hit pavement with dread. Her house was right in front of the bus stop. Relief spread as far as her facial expression as she noted her mother`s car wasn`t parked in front of the small house. She was safe for now.
A/N: I`m really not sure what I`m trying to accomplish here. Hope you enjoyed this part. I`m gonna try and update within the week. Thanks for reading!