A Force Of Gravity✅

30

-Rose- 3 years ago-

"Don't leave me now
Don't say good bye
Don't turn around."
-Ride by Lana Del Rey

Everyone has been rambling on about this party for weeks. Will has begun having parties nearly every week since we joined High School a few months ago. He didn't have them to be popular, as everyone seemed to believe. He wants a distraction because his father has been abusing him more than usual and he refuses to tell anyone.

I try to bring it up to him but every time I do, he comes back with some snarky comment that hurts more than it should. Always about my parents. Or my appearance. Or my new princess status in the school.

It is strange how we've gone from being just our little group to being surrounded by people. Brooke and I joined the cheerleader team and the boys joined the football team, somehow earning our popular status.

"You look nice, where are you going?" My father asks as he comes inside my room. The shirt I'm wearing is white and revealing, the skirt is too short and my eye makeup is too dark. My father clearly disapproves.

"To a party." I reply. As I apply an extra coat of mascara, he walks over to me. My eyes catch on to the bag of clothes in his hand and I freeze with the mascara wand in my hand. "Where are you going?"

"New York for the weekend." He says casually and I glance up at him. He has been going away more and more lately. I'm pretty sure whatever relationship we had is beginning to grow more and more nonexistent.

"Again?" My voice sounds lonely and empty, even to my own ears. "Do you ever want to be here? And when you are here, do you want to leave again?"

"Rose, it isn't..." he angrily defends but I rise my hand for him to stop speaking.

"Don't." I hiss. "You and mum are just as bad as each other."

"Don't talk to me about your mother." He mumbles and leans against my wall in his thousands of dollars suit. His expression is blank and I glance away, feeling the familiar burning in my throat.

"Of course, because you might drop dead if you ever dare to speak of her." I mock.

"She isn't someone I want to speak of and she isn't someone you should want to speak of either. You know what she was like, why would you want to talk about her?" He isn't angry, he just sounds drained but I'm too annoyed with him.

"Because she is still my mother and you won't give me any of the details about why she left and I..." I begin in frustration, turning my entire body to face him but he gives me a pointed look. His phone starts buzzing.

"I have to take this call but Rosie, just forget about her for your own sake. It's been years since she left and she isn't coming back any time soon." He snaps before storming out of my room.

I'm left looking at the empty space on the wall where he had stood. Work comes first, always. It always has but I never noticed it before my mother left. We were never a happy family, that's for sure but at least we were a family of sorts. Now we are just...I don't know.

Marissa walks into my room, a deep frown on her face. She silently comes over, takes my hair brush and starts brushing my hair. I sit here, not speaking and not moving. I'd be more surprised if he had stayed but it still hurts that he has gone.