Mark My Words

18 | Red Flag

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Rosalie couldn't stop thinking about the close call outside of Baskin Robins.

What was she thinking? Joanna was off-limits until after Regionals. Anything before that would be her breaking before Joanna. Suffice to say after a long night of debating it, she realized that Joanna's chronic flirting was her best bet at convincing Rosalie to date sooner. After one date, or even one kiss—if that was Joanna's endgame—then all she held over Joanna was gone. She'd have nothing to keep Joanna in the goal.

Try as she might, it was impossible for Rosalie to avoid Joanna—their class scheduling made it so. Worrying over it and what Ray must think of her now (How much had Ray seen or even heard?) pushed Rosalie to the brink of four in the morning without sleeping for more than ten minutes.

She slapped her pillow over her face and screamed. She slumped against her blankets, scowling at the stars. The tension in her head prompted a headache she couldn't shake no matter how much water she drank, and so she left her bed to find relief in a pill that would knock her out. She just wanted sleep.

The medicine, however, caused her to sleep through her alarm.

Her mother often left for work before Rosalie's alarm, and so with no one to wake her, she slept long through fourth period and awoke, groggy, to a text from Joanna.

______________

JOANNA: Yo you good?
You missed Michael third hour. He looks like a mummy.

ROSALIE: Shit I'm sorry

I've never missed school before D:

JOANNA: You what
You've never missed school

ROSALIE: NO. I went to school with a 102 fever because I didn't want to miss a presentation

JOANNA: Girl no

ROSALIE: There were casualties. I got Ray sick that time

______________

Wait.

Sami usually picks me up.

Sami would have barged straight into her house and woken her up, but there weren't any texts from him suggesting that he even came by and realized she wasn't coming out. There was one text from Juliana asking where she was for English, but that was all. She had no reason to see her other teammates until lunch.

She was out of bed and getting ready in the bathroom when Joanna called. She checked the time. Fourth hour would have just let out.

"I'm brushing my teeth—hold on," Rosalie said.

"Fine then I'll just talk. First off: At this point you just shouldn't come to school. I've missed school enough times to know. And second: I'm fucking taking notes for you, bitch, so you better be grateful. Be lucky he skipped the quiz in Environmental Science today."

"Oh my God, I didn't even think of that," Rosalie whined, mouth full of foam. She spat it out. "I'm sorry. I'll pay you back for the notes. Somehow."

"Cool. So we're in agreement to another study sesh tonight?" Joanna said. Rosalie rolled her eyes at herself in the mirror. Even if she wasn't ill, she looked ill. She rarely ever had a reason to suffer from eye-bags but damn.

She tugged at her cheek, looking into her bloodshot eyes as she said, "Yeah, sure. You know the gate code?"

"Of course. You never know when you need to spy on your crush."