Chapter 4 – How to be myself
"Rose!" Lissa called from behind me in the corridor, I looked back and saw Lissa with a couple of friends, some of them I noticed and some of them I didn't. I even noticed her holding hands with one I didn't notice, he had blue eyes and black hair I think it was an Ozera if I remember correctly. Mason was with her as well and Eddie Castile.
Mason came up to me and hugged me, squeezing tight on my now sore arms.
"Oh God, not so tight" I said, hugging him back
"It's so good to see you, Hathaway" he said, pulling me back, I could tell he was avoiding looking at my arms and neck. Though most of it was covered with foundation, you could still see the larger silver scars but the worst of it was covered up.
"Hey Rose, do you want to come over to my room later, we could do something together" Lissa asked, she was really the only person that I wanted to ever be with, plus she would have an extra stock of foundation that I could use for tomorrow.
"Sure, now?" I said
"I have class right now, but after that you can come over, I could give you a makeover" She said cheekily
"I can't wait" I replied unenthusiastically which made Eddie and Mason laugh.
"We can always save you Rose" Eddie laughed
"Nah, it's fine, I can always put up with one girl's night in" I teased, I looked back at the guy holding Lissa's hand "Who's this?"
"Rose, this is Christian, my boyfriend" She seemed a little awkward on that last word that it made me laugh
"Christian Ozera?" I asked
"Yeah" he replied simply
"Well, he hasn't passed the Rose Hathaway test, so he's not your boyfriend yet" I said, poking Christian's arm.
"Same old Rose" Mason laughed, going to punch me playfully in the arm. I wasn't expecting it and I flinched so badly that I hit the wall behind me, whatever face I had on scared the life out of them.
"Ro-" Mason started, but I couldn't process what was happening, I looked at each of their faces still against the wall, I could feel myself losing it slowly. Suddenly, I just walked off without another word to them and headed to my dorm.
It felt like my ears were almost muted to any sound there was around me, if Lissa called me back, I couldn't hear. I just kept walking and replaying what I did in my mind again and again and again.
I then bumped into someone.
"Rose?" asked someone, I looked up and it was Dimitri of all people "Are you okay?" I didn't realise that I'd been crying for a while now, I opened my mouth to speak but all that followed was more sobs.
"Come on, let's go find somewhere to sit down" he said as he was guiding me to a small seating area near the building only for staff. He pulled out the chair on a table as I sat down in it, sniffling from my tears. He then brought some hot chocolates to the table, one for me and one for him. I politely took and started sipping on it, feeling it scorching on my tongue, nothing I wasn't used to.
"Thank you" I said after a long time of silence
"It seemed like you needed it" replied Dimitri drinking his own hot chocolate. I played with the handle of the cup
"I wanted to come back here and I wanted everything to be normal. But I can't even be the same with my friends without having a panic attack" I said, tears still streaming down my face.
"You've been through something… difficult" Dimitri stuttered
"That's a little bit of an understatement" I murmured
"Your friends have changed in the last two years as well as you. You shouldn't have too many expectations" he said wisely
"When I was down there" I started "All I had was memories to keep me going, memories of my mother, no matter how much I seemed to hate her, Lissa, and the rest of my friends"
"Maybe you're trying too hard to be the old Rose; you haven't learnt to be yourself again"
"You should consider becoming a therapist, you seem to be very good at it" I laughed but maybe he had a point. I sighed "I haven't exactly been around people for a long time, I hear it can be hard to warm up to people"
"You'll get there" he said
"Whatever you say Comrade" I said finishing my hot chocolate.
It was around now when Lissa finished her classes along with her extracurricular stuff, well she did she probably changed from then. I knocked on her door a couple of times and waited. I didn't like the stares I got from people when I was walking across the campus, I even gave them evil glares to make them stop whispering about me, they weren't as subtle as they think they were.
She opened the door after a couple of minutes. Lissa was there with wet hair and her casual clothes on.
"Rose!" She smiled suddenly "I didn't think you were coming! Come in!" she said as she opened the door wider and I walked in. I saw her makeup and hair stuff set up across her desk and mirror.
"Wow, you have a lot of makeup" I said, remembering how excited she got when she got her first piece of makeup at age 12. I internally giggled at how ridiculously happy she got.
"Sit down, I want to get started on you" she said, pulling out a chair for me to go sit on. She pulled out some makeup wipes to take off my old layers of foundation. I held her arm when she brought the wipe to my face
"Promise me you won't react" I whispered looking into her jade green eyes. She looked at me silently as she slowly wiped off my makeup. Her eyes widened as she revealed more and more of my face.
"Rose" she whispered a single tear falling down her cheek "What happened?"
"Which ones are you talking about? There's a lot" I said
"Here" she said lightly touching the burns on my cheek.
"He liked to see what made me scream the most and what part of my body gave me the worst pain" I said in a monotone voice "Those are cigarette burns, they didn't hurt as much as the knives"
"Oh Rose!" She exclaimed, she sat onto the floor with her hands in her face "I had no idea it was this bad"
"Lissa" I said realising what I just said to her "I didn't mean to say that I'm sorry please don't cry"
"You went through all that and you still worry about if I cry or not" She said lifting her head up, looking at me "Did you ever, you know, do the thing where you look through my eyes?"
"I did, a lot at first but after a while I never had the energy to do so, hence why I didn't know about Christian" I chuckled slightly
"Oh right" she smiled a little bit "I'm sorry about earlier by the way with Mason, he feels really bad"
"I had no idea I'd freak out that much, it isn't his fault" I said, trying to get her up off the floor "So, are you going to get started on my makeover or not". She giggled
"I was born ready"
After a couple of hours Lissa revealed me in the mirror, I looked normal. She managed to cover up all of my scars with a hell of a lot of different brands of makeup. She even gave me a couple of bottles until she buys me more in the weekend. Then we went to get dinner together.
Dinner definitely went a lot better than breakfast, I got the same thing as Lissa did and we sat on a table with her boyfriend, Mason, Eddie and one or two more people that I didn't recognise. It felt like everything was back to normal, almost. We were chatting, making jokes, laughing just like we used to.
"Hey Rose, about earlier" Mason started
"Forget it" I said "I already have"
He seemed to drop it straight after I said that.
A/N: I seem to be writing a lot of 'zen' talks between Dimitri and Rose - there will surely be more of those coming x