Mark My Words

34 | The Getaway

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It was nearing midnight when Rosalie typed in the code on the Maple Grove gate and hopped onto the back of Joanna's vespa for the last leg of their journey. She perched her hands behind her, leaning back from Joanna's backpack as they sped for the Mason residence. Joanna had her curls tied over one shoulder to keep it out of Rosalie's face, and when they pulled to a slow stop in her driveway, Joanna began undoing the tie.

Rosalie stepped off the vespa. She opened her mouth to say goodbye, but instead, she said, "I'm sorry to hear about... what happened in Kaiserslautern."

Joanna's fingers paused over the braid, and Rosalie expected to get a warning look, but instead, Joanna kept her eyes on the handlebars. Rosalie swallowed hard, but all her feelings were lodged in her throat. She didn't want something like that to happen to anyone, let alone Joanna and Lennie.

"I just want you to know that... well, you probably already know, but I would never do that. To you," Rosalie said, only to roll her eyes with a nervous laugh. "Or anyone, really."

Joanna laughed, but it was one of her sarcastic laughs she used with Jamie and Dylan in French class. "Yeah, sure Killer," she said. "I never pegged you as the type."

Rosalie nodded, turning her eyes down to her sneakers. She twisted the sole of her left foot around on the concrete. She wanted to fill the silence, but had nothing equipped to do so, so instead she stood and wondered if she should just walk away. The silence stretched, though, and she knew Joanna was watching her.

Thankfully, Joanna came to her rescue. "Tell Khoshekh I say hey."

"Yeah, okay, will do."

"I'll see you on Monday?"

"Yeah. Yeah, okay. See you then," Rosalie said, and with that, she turned and hurried to the front door.

She squeaked inside, narrowly avoiding Khoshekh's angry paw trying to hold the door open. She listened to Joanna's vespa peel away onto the street before moving from the foyer. She scooped up Khoshekh on her way to the stairs, and hugged him to her chest. She collapsed into her bed like this, with Khoshekh begrudgingly curled up against her stomach. It took a few minutes of this for her heart to finally calm, and for her to realize that she chewed a hangnail right off. The blood collected on her lips before drying on her nail.

She sighed at the sight. Sami was on her mind again, and the five-day-old timestamp on their last text conversation. By now, Sami would have known all about it, but now?

Well, so much for a no-drama year, she mused.

***

Since the battle against the Adam High Lions was an away game for girls, it meant their final match with Adams was home, and the stadium was filled with Knights' blue—bundled up in scarves and hats, clutching hot chocolates in their mittens.

But before all of Bradshaw geared up in their best school spirit winter apparel, there was a Monday. And before that, a Friday. Fridays were designated laundry days for a lot of the girls, simply because weekend practice was few and far between. With the Adams match coming up, though, they scheduled a late morning practice (for which Rosalie got the brunt of the annoyed groans for since she was the one to suggest it).

And this was precisely where Rosalie went wrong.

On Fridays, she often prioritized getting her laundry done for the sake of having her duffle ready the following Monday, but after spending Friday night at Jamie's, she completely forgot about laundry. Her school uniform didn't smell too bad on Friday, so they could go for another week of use if she rotated them properly with her new dress pants. Just thinking about her new dress pants reminded her of shopping at Kohl's with Sami, though, and so she just didn't think about them.