This chapter's a bit long – I hope y'all still enjoy it though!

The bell rang, announcing the end of the school day. People all around Rose leapt to their feet, grabbing their purses and binders and backpacks, and rushing out of the classroom like it was on fire and they needed to escape to safety. Rose waited until everyone was gone, even her English teacher, before she began to shove her papers and Hamlet book into the designer backpack her mother had insisted on spending oodles of money on.

The redheaded beauty was in no rush to get home, because her parents were going to drag her to a dinner party her father's friend was throwing that night. The thought occurred to her that she could tell her mother that she had to stay late for school so she wouldn't have to attend the dinner with her parents.

Rose toyed with this in her mind for a few minutes as she trudged down the long hallway, not sure where her feet were leading her. She wasn't really the type to lie, but God, she had already been to two social events that week, and didn't see the reason to go to a third.

As she reached the entrance to the cafeteria, she stopped to pull out her Blackberry and send her mother a text.

Mom – Staying after to study w/ Miranda & Elizabeth for biology test tomorrow. Be home this evening. – Rose

She pressed send and a flame flickered in her heart, like she was a delinquent ditching class to smoke pot. Besides telling her mother this little lie, the worst thing Rose had ever done was throw a box of pencils at the back of a boy's head in second grade.

Rose laughed to herself at the memory, the first real smile on her face in what seemed like years. Ruth texted back with an "OK", and Rose knew she was pissed that her daughter wasn't going to be at the dinner, but Rose didn't really care.

The emptied school kind of scared her. The silence-the absence of the squealing girls and the booming laughs of guys-surrounded her like she was prey. Rose pushed this thought into the back of her mind and began to make her way to the auditorium, where she could settle into one of the hundreds of seats and read her favorite book, A Tale of Two Cities, in peace, without her mother's shrill voice carrying over the stairs and into her bedroom or her father yelling into the phone at an employee.

The auditorium doors closed with an eerie clang behind her. She blinked, surveying the enormous room. Dim bulbs gave it just enough light to find one's way around; the spotlights were off, making the stage look like a giant black mass; the silence seemed to be even louder in here, almost deafening Rose.

She swallowed the grumping lump in her throat and fought back her uneasiness as she set her backpack and purse on the floor, before sitting down in a seat and making herself as comfortable as possible. She propped her feet up on the chair in front of her; her lavender skirt fell into place in the middle of her thighs, but she didn't care. After all, no one was here to see it except her.

She retrieved A Tale of Two Cities and opened it to a random page to begin reading. She had read this book so many times since sixth grade that she could quotes full pages from it and know exactly what was going on if she flipped to any page.

Ten minutes passed. Rose's fear had just ebbed away when the shuffling of papers from a few yards ahead made her heart stop. Slowly raising her emerald eyes from her book, she scanned the area in front of her for a masked killer or the drama teacher. Finding nothing, she nervously returned to the paragraph she had been reading, hoping that the noise was just a figment of her imagination.

She scolded herself under her breath for being so silly. She was getting worked up for nothing!

"Hey, what are you doing here?"

Rose gasped loudly and threw the book on the ground, jumping to her feet in preparation for a struggle with a murderer. A skinny guy with slicked-back blonde hair stared at her curiously, his crystal blue eyes glittering with slight amusement. He picked up his backpack from a chair, slinging it onto his shoulder, and tried his best to suppress a laugh.

"I'm sorry, did I frighten you?"

"No!" Rose's cheeks burned crimson in embarrassment. She swiped her book off of the floor and threw it into her open backpack. "I'm supposed to be here by myself, by the way!" She glared at the boy, her eyes smoldering.

He raised his hands defensively, a smile playing on his lips. "Sorry, miss."

"God!" She gathered her belongings and stomped out of the maze of seats and to the wide path of carpet, her gaze still glued on the guy. "What are you doing here?"

He fished a sketchpad out of his backpack and held it out in front of him for her to see. She stepped towards him, squinting at it. A sketching of a middle-aged man with a bushy mustache graced the paper, and Rose found herself amazed at how lifelike the drawing was.

"I'm Jack." The blonde boy put the sketchpad back into his backpack, and then stuck his hand out to Rose.

She blinked at it for a second before hesitantly gripping it.

Jack chuckled, his white teeth shining in the dimness of the auditorium. "This is my school too, you know. I have as much of a right to be here as you!"

Rose nodded curtly, frowning a bit.

"But I'm sorry, again, if I scared you."

"It's fine." Rose's voice was clipped and high-pitched; she almost hoped he didn't notice. Her mouth dropped open a bit in surprise when Jack yawned and stretched his arms over his head, revealing an Iron Maiden shirt underneath the blue jacket he was wearing.

"Iron Maiden?" Her instincts screamed at her to shut up; she was a lady, and ladies didn't listen to metal music or converse with boys lower than them, and they especially didn't admit to boys lower than them that they listened to metal music! But there was another voice in her head, a voice she usually tried to ignore, that egged her on. "Iron Maiden—I love them."

"Oh?" Jack studied the scarlet-haired girl in front of him—short skirt; bright pink lips; designer blouse and bag and shoes. He laughed and stared into her pretty face. "You don't seem like the type of person that would listen to a band like that."

Rose furrowed her eyebrows in annoyance. "You don't know me."

"Well, you're right." Jack suddenly tossed his backpack onto the carpet and took a seat in a chair on the last row. "Come sit with me and let me know you, then."

"What?"

"Come talk with me!"

Rose looked around the auditorium nervously, as if she was searching for someone to come save her from this "evil man."

But a part of her told her it was okay to sit with him.

And so she did, though she was a little uneasy about it. Jack smiled at her, a true, genuine smile, like he was happy she was with him. Her heart fluttered at the sight.

"What else do you listen to, Miss…?"

"Rose. Rose Dewitt-Bukater."

"Ha, I'll have to get you to write that one down." Another grin.

This time, Rose smiled back—and a real smile at that—before she answered his question. "Um, well, I like a lot of bands…Blink-182, Nirvana, Marilyn Manson, Avenged Sevenfold—" Her cheeks flushed pink again. "—Cannibal Corpse…"

Jack laughed heartily at the last one. "My God, I never would have guessed!"

Rose giggled with him, feeling herself warming up to this guy. "I know, huh? I'm nothing like the way I look, I suppose."

"So far, not really. But I guess you shouldn't judge a book by its cover then, hm?" He winked at her. "I love all those bands, too. You have a great taste."

Her thoughts drifted back to the drawing of the man Jack had sketched. "Do you like art, Jack?"

His blue eyes lit up with excitement. "I love it! It's my passion. Drawing, especially. I paint sometimes too, but it's nothing that great. Just drawing, mainly."

"I wish I was like that." Rose looked down at her crossed legs, depression beginning to eat at her. "I wish I could just sit and draw. My parents would lose their minds."

"Why?"

"Art's…not 'worth any value.' Or so my father says." A sigh tumbled from Rose's mouth, loud and heavy. "My parents never allowed me to try anything artistic. They wanted me to be smart and spend my time learning about business." She emphasized the last word with a deep voice, imitating her father, before she got to her feet and grabbed her bags. "I need to go. My mother's already going to be pissed at me for being so late."

Jack rose as well and walked with her out of the auditorium, out of the school, and into the parking lot. The orange sun was low in the cotton candy pink sky, and Rose was nervous about going home and facing her mother's anger.

She faced Jack and gave him a small smile. "I liked talking with you, actually."

He blushed slightly. "Me too, Rose. You're a neat girl. Nothing like the girls that you hang out with."

"You've seen me around school before?"

"Everyone has! You're a popular kid. Everyone knows your name."

Oh. Right. "Ah. Well…" Rose opened the door of her Ferrari and lowered herself into the driver's seat. "I'll…see you tomorrow, Jack." With one last smile, she closed the door, backed out of the parking lot, and drove home as the blonde boy watched her car speed down the road and then disappear around a corner.